A Small Step
by Minimatt
Summary: SG-1 goes on a mission to an unknown planet, where they meet a new character that is not quite what they expected. He'll play a mayor role in the story to come, but who and what is he?
1. Chapter 1

A/N:

This is my first fanfic ever. Please don't immediately lynch me if I did something wrong. Reviews are always welcome

Copyrights: I do not own the original characters of SG-1, or the universe in which they live, but I did create King Minos, Tarin and others.

CHAPTER 1 – A New Mission

"Good morning Sir."

"Morning, Carter" answered Jack O'Neill absently, as he sat down on his usual seat in the large conference room that overlooked the Stargate.

"Morning everybody" said Daniel, excited about today's mission.

"Good morning too" Said Teal'c, his usual, silent, self.

"Morning people." Said General Hammond, Chief of the Stargate Command. "I would like to start with today's briefing. You'll be leading a scouting mission to P3X-408. We have sent a MALP there, and encountered a civilization. We estimated it to be somewhere in the Roman age, because of the temples and markets."

"How did the people react to the presence of the MALP, sir?" Asked Daniel.

"They were not frightened, but they did not trust the situation completely. They have a few soldiers guarding the gate, but they did not have Goa'uld weapons."

"So no pesky snakes there, huh?" Asked O'Neill.

"It would appear so," continued Hammond, "and I'm sending you to them to forge a possible alliance. They did not have much in military power, they are after all, primitive people, but maybe they have some natural resources that they are willing to share for medicine or some technologies to help their agriculture. Please keep this mission diplomatic, we need all the allies we can get, people."

A few minutes later, SG-1 appeared in the gate room, dressed in the desert outfits of the SGC. They watched in silence as the seven chevrons of the Stargate were dialled one by one. After the usual 'kawoosh' from the gate had subsided, General Hammond wished them good luck.

SG-1 walked into the blue, standing puddle of liquid simultaneously, and they appeared almost instantly on the other side.

On the other side was a pretty large, open area. The DHD from the Stargate and the MALP that was parked next to it were there. Just as a small unit of men standing guard over their new visitors.

"Ah. The welcoming committee. Well, it's nice they're not shooting at us for a change" said Jack O'Neill.

"Greetings, strangers." Said the leader of the guards, Tarin. "My name is Tarin. I will escort you to our leader."

"Great. I'm starting to like these people. Straight and to the point." Said Jack O'Neill.

"Interesting. They appear to have not advanced very far from the ancient Romans." Said Daniel Jackson.

"Did the Ancient Romans have crossbows?" Asked O'Neill mockingly.

"As a matter-of-fact, they did, sir." Said Samantha Carter.

"How did you know?" asked Daniel, not pleasantly surprised that Carter had answered faster than him.

"I did a school project once, over weapons in history."

"Can't imagine seeing a small version of Carter holding a presentation over medieval crossbows." Said Jack O'Neill. "Can you imagine that, Teal'c?"

"I cannot, O'Neill." Said Teal'c

"The original crossbow came from China, from the 6th Century BC. It could launch metal bolts quite far away, for a weapon from only wood and hair." Said Daniel, not pleased that Sam had known a lot about historical crossbows too.

"They used HAIR in their crossbows? For what? So they could brag about having killed an enemy with hair?" said O'Neill unbelievingly.

"No Jack, they used the hair for the rope. It is an ancient process, which is not used today anymore, of course, in which they strung and winded the hairs to form a strong rope. The rope was then placed in between the ends of the metal bow, which was in turn fixed on a thick, wooden plank. They loaded the bow with metal bolts by a sort of trigger, which the wielder used to pull the string back. The trigger was then released, shooting the bolt away. Bolts are shorter, but heavier, than standard arrows..."

"Daniel," O'Neill interrupted him, "As much as I like weaponry and explosions, this crash course in crossbowology is starting to bore me."

"crossbowology? Sir, that's not even a word." Said Carter.

"Yes it is, I just made it up. Therefore, it is a word."

"O'Neill!" interrupted Teal'c

"Yea? What's t... Whoa. I wasn't expecting that!" Said Jack incredulously as they stood on the top of the stairs leading to a huge square. The gate had apparently been resting on top of a hill, because the surrounding area of the square was lower than that on which they were standing.

"Behold, the beautiful sight of our capitol city, Avalon." Said Tarin, who had followed their discussion with interest.

"Wow. It's beautiful" said Sam.

"It is remarkable. They surpassed the Romans in architecture. Think of the millions of hours of work that must have been used in the construction of these stairs alone!"

"I'm trying not to, Daniel. I'm thinking that the guy that lives over there has it all covered."

"Indeed, O'Neill. It seems that the person that resides in the palace has covered the entire area with buildings." Said Teal'c.

"That's not what I meant Teal'c. It's a metaphor for that that person must have a lot of money."

"I understand"

The group walked down the long and broad stairs that led them to the large, open square. On the square was a market, and there were a lot of people.

"The market appears to be well organised." Said Teal'c.

"What makes you say that?" said Carter.

"The market stalls are placed in straight lines with regular intervals. There pathways between the stalls are even and straight."

"Oh. I didn't notice that."

"The market was organized by our leader. He disliked the old, unorganised market, so he set up regulations for a new one. There have been no problems with the market ever since." Said Tarin.

"Who is your leader? What is he called?" asked Daniel.

"Our leader is King Minos." Answered Tarin.

"King Minos? Where we come from, there are myths and legends of an ancient king named Minos. It is believed that he reigned an empire on our planet some three-thousand years ago. But there Is much speculation over that, because there were several other kings who had almost the same name as Minos. They were also believed to have founded empires or to have some kind of wisdom." Said Daniel Jackson.

"That is indeed interesting," Answered Tarin, "because our king Minos is very wise. He has protected our people from disasters for a long time."

"What form of disasters did your king protect you from?" asked Teal'c

"Plagues, droughts and floods. Those were the most recent disaster that struck our people." Answered Tarin. "We do not often have those disasters, but when they appear we can always count on king Minos to protect us."

"Sounds like a nice guy to me." Said O'Neill.

"He is certainly a 'nice guy'. He does not reign by fear. Our people do not fear the king. They respect him, and he respects them too. If there is a problem that is hard to solve, king Minos will always be the first to offer assistance."

"In our history, on our planet, that is quite rare. There are not a lot of remains of kings that reigned that way. Most stories are full of kings that reigned by fear and hate." Said Daniel.

"Not all the stories, Daniel. King Arthur of Camelot, for one, was loved by everyone too." Said Jack.

"You're talking about a mythical king here, Jack. And only one. I could tell you more stories about ancient tyrants than about ancient 'good guys'. Almost all the kings in our history went to war at one point during their lives."

"Daniel. Those names would fall on deaf ears with me. King Arthur of Camelot is about as far as my knowledge of ancient mythology goes."

"What about Ra, Osiris and Anubis and all the system lords we have 'met'?"

"I'm not counting those under ancient mythology. Those guys fall in the category of 'bastards' or 'dead bastards'."

Sam and Daniel chuckled, while Teal'c raised his eyebrow to signal that he had understood the joke and found it to be funny, for Earth standards. During their conversation they had almost crossed the market and were heading for a large, white building.

The building was formed in ancient Roman style, with some hits to the Greek culture. It had the form of a large rectangle, and it had pillars in front of the entrance. The main building material was a white kind of rock, possibly marble. Daniel recognised various key elements that could lead to the exact date that these people were transported from Earth. Sam recognised some elements from her old class books, and O'Neill recognised that is was a big building.

They entered the palace through a large door made of thick wood. After the door came a large hall, with a pathway leading to a door on the other end and several doors on both sides of the pathway. The pathway was flanked by several large pillars, ornately decorated with various kinds of animals of mythological beings.

They saw Pegasi, Dragons, Unicorns, Medusas, Sphinxes, Birds and a lot of other creatures. Of course, Daniel knew what place those creatures had in Greek mythology, and what the stories were around them. He noticed that there were also a lot of beings from Roman mythology.

They walked the pathway between the large, white pillars to the end, and they went to another large, wooden door. They entered a large room. It was beautifully decorated, although with not as many gold as they had seen in other throne rooms across the galaxy. This throne room was more white. The only thing missing in this throne room was the throne. There was a beautiful, large chair at the head of a long table, but the other chairs along that table were beautiful as well.

"King Minos will soon be with you." Said Tarin. "Please take a seat at the table." Then he walked away.

"Well, this is certainly one of the nicer welcomes we have had over the years. No 'bow before my almighty mights' or 'throw them in prisons' here. If they had cake, it would be perfect." Said O'Neill.

And speaking of the devil, there immediately came several servants into the room while carrying several trays with food. Not enough food for a large banquet, but more than enough to keep you occupied for a while.

"Lovely." Said O'Neill, while smiling at one of the female servants. "Do you think they heard me asking for cake?"

"Maybe? I don't know. Perhaps they just heard that there were visitors and had to put all the food on the trays?" answered Carter.

"It would indeed seem improbable that they heard you talking about cake and immediately came with food." Added Teal'c.

"I think that we could better taste this food now than waste our time discussing whether they heard me or not." Said O'Neill.

"I completely agree with you, Sir." Said Carter.

Several minutes later, the king still was not there. Daniel began to worry.

"When would king Minos be here?"

"Daniel, we'll start worrying about that when the food runs out. So sit down and relax. The people here are friendly, we get delicious food and those chairs are comfy. Enjoy it, because the times that first contact is this good are rare, considering the past few years." Said O'Neill

"But what if something has happened to their King, and they blame it on us? We're new here, and if our arrival coincides with something bad, maybe they'll blame it on us. It would not be the first time that happened, and you know that."

"Then we'll try to reason with these people. They seem to prefer talking to fighting. I didn't see a lot of guards here. Besides, we're on a diplomatic mission. They usually don't resort in us running for our lives."

They stopped their chatter as they heard and saw Tarin coming in.

"I present you, king Minos!"

"Thank you, Tarin." They heard a voice say, and they saw a figure walking into the room.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Second Chapter up, I'm going to post one chapter each day for as long as my vacation lasts.

Reviews are welcome

* * *

Chapter 2 –The Young King

* * *

"Greetings, strangers. I welcome you to Avalon. I w..."

He stopped speaking as he noticed that none of the team members of SG-1 were actually listening. They were staring to him, completely surprised.

"What are you looking at?" he asked. "Is there something on my clothes? Between my teeth?"

"Huh. Uh. No. Sorry for staring, King Minos, but we expected you to be... different..." answered Daniel.

"Different in what way?" asked king Minos, not in the least bit insulted of the lack of interest from the strangers in his speech."

"Well, um... We kind of expected you to be ... Um." Daniel started.

"Older." Finished O'Neill.

King Minos was a kid. A boy, couldn't have been much older than fifteen or so. He had blond hair, blue eyes and was quite small. He was wearing a form of toga with short sleeves.

"Well, why would you expect me to be older?" he asked.

"I don't know. The kings we've encountered before were all grown adults." Answered Jack.

"How many kings have you met before me?"

"A lot. We're explorers, so we visit a lot of planets. Most of those planets are ruled by the Goa'uld, but some have their own kings, or leaders, or something."

"Ah. Yes, the Goa'uld. They are quite annoying. But what brings you here, to Avalon, other than exploration? Surely, the ... object ... that you've sent through the Astria Porta could have explored this world?"

"We're here to discuss the possibility of forming an alliance with your people. To trade, or to share knowledge." Said O'Neill.

"Tell me, then. What planet are you from, and what do you propose in an alliance?" he asked while he sat down on the chair on the head of the table.

"We're from the planet Earth. The Goa'uld know us as the Tauri. We could trade medicines, or food for example for minerals. We could teach you how to enlarge the harvests, or cure a disease, for example. And if you are under attack from the Goa'uld, we could offer protection or shelter on our planet." Daniel spoke.

"But we have little diseases that are hard to cure, and we have food enough. When there is a drought, then sure, the harvests can be a little bad, but we always have enough food to serve the most basic needs. We have enough farmers, and they produce enough food in an average year to make sure that no-one goes hungry. And we can protect ourselves from the Goa'uld just fine, if they dare attack."

"We've met a lot of Goa'uld already, and they usually attack a planet that is not occupied by another Goa'uld. And there doesn't seem to be a Goa'uld here, so..." O'Neill started.

"So what?" king Minos asked, not understanding where O'Neill was going to.

"So how do you plan to defend yourselves against Goa'uld attacks?" finished Teal'c.

"We capture their men and send them back through the Astria Porta to where they came from. We take everything we can use from them, except for their clothes. Only if they are severe trouble-makers, then we send them back completely naked."

"And if they come in ships, what then?" asked Daniel.

"Then we do the same, only this time we ask where they would like to be sent. And we keep the ship, of course. As you can see, we rarely need protection. And if they somehow manage to fire at the city, the civilians can flee to safety in the underground caverns."

* * *

"My lord..." panted a guard that came running into the hall hastily, "something terrible has happened. A civilian has been killed!"

"Where? When? And by who?" king Minos asked, seeming really surprised by the news.

"That is the strange part. It was in the middle of the street, and suddenly there was a flash of light and a lot of noise. Then a civilian lay dead on the middle of the road!"

"That is very strange. A busy street, on the middle of the day. Lead the way to the site, please."

"Of course, My Lord."

"If you will excuse me for leaving." King Minos said to SG-1.

"Can we come? Maybe we can help?" said Carter.

"OK. But hurry."

The group left the palace in a hurry, and they ran towards to street where the murder had taken place. It was a busy street, not really far from the large market square. Well, it would be a busy street if there hadn't just been someone murdered. A few guardsmen stood in a circle around a few civilians, family of the deceased. The other guards searched the area for the assassin. They continued their search when the small group of King Minos, the guard and SG-1 arrived. One of the guards, seemingly their leader, walked forward.

"My lord. I have sent out guards to search for the assassin. They have not found anything yet. The weapon is not one of our own. It left burn marks, so that suggests a weapon of Goa'uld type."

"You did well. But you'll not find the assassin this way. I'll capture him, before he takes any more casualties. I assume you've learned about an Ashrak in the Academy?"

"An Ashrak? How are you planning to capture him, My lord?"

"By smell."

King Minos walked to the unfortunate victim of the Ashrak, and started smelling around like a dog. He must have picked up a scent quickly, because before long he sucked in a large breath, and opened his eyes.

"Guards. Please follow me." He said.

* * *

He ran away to the end of the street. He could run quite fast for a boy his age, but then, it was unusual that he was trying to trace an elite Goa'uld soldier with a cloak by smell. At the end of the street, he turned right. Sg-1 decided to follow him, and so they ran after him.

The boy, or teenager for that part, that was king Minos had apparently lost the Ashrak, because he suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, between two low buildings. He slowly pivoted on one foot in a complete circle while trying to capture the scent of the Ashrak again. Suddenly, he turned his head upwards, and mumbled "Of course!". The rest of the guards and Sg-1, who had finally caught up with him, asked what was the matter.

"The matter is that the Ashrak is not as dumb as he looks. He, or it, actually, had climbed the building. That means that he must have ran over the rooftops."

"Can you follow him there?" asked O'Neill.

"Yes, but I don't want any of you break your necks while on the roofs. If you'd fall, you would probably die or at least break something. And that would not look good in terms of our possible alliance, or would it? So you can follow me if you wish, but be careful."

"And what about us, my lord?" asked one of the guards.

"You can come with me over the rooftops, or you can follow me from down in the streets. Do as you wish."

The guards quickly made up their minds, and decided to split the group in half. Half of the guards would follow King Minos over the rooftops, and the other half would follow him from down in the streets.

"I'll follow king Minos too." Said Daniel.

"Nah, I think I'll follow him from down in the streets. I'm too old to go climbing over rooftops at breakneck speed." Said O'Neill.

"I don't like climbing, so I'll follow O'Neill, if you don't mind." Said Carter.

"I would opt to follow king Minos over the rooftops, but I fear that the rooftops would break." Said Teal'c.

"So watch out, Daniel."

"Will do, Jack."

* * *

King Minos however had climbed up to the roof of the building to the left, and stood there waiting for the rest to come up. Daniel walked to the large vat that the king must have used as a step to climb up to the roof, and climbed up there. Then he stood there, because the roof was still a little bit too high for him to reach. He started about thinking to ask for help, when it came.

"Here, give me your hand." Said King Minos from the roof.

"Thanks, but I fear that I'll pull you from the roof if I take it. The stuff I carry is not the lightest, and I'm not the smallest guy..."

"Just take my hand" said king Minos, this time a bit louder.

Daniel took his hand and was really surprised when he was pulled up to the roof without much of a trouble. The kid was apparently a lot stronger than he looked.

After they had pulled the three guards that would follow them over the roof up, King Minos had ran away to the right. He was running a lot faster than Daniel had deemed 'safe' for running on rooftops in the middle of a city.

King Minos suddenly stopped again, apparently to catch the smell of the Ashrak. He turned to face the wall of a large building that was a little higher than the surrounding buildings. He made a very high jump, for a kid of his size, and grabbed the top of the building. Quickly, he hoisted himself up and immediately ducked down as if there was something flying over his head.

Daniel and the guards came finally close enough to try to climb the building where king Minos was fighting an invisible opponent. Daniel jumped, and he just reached high enough to grab the top of the roof. He hoisted himself up, but it went slowly, while it had seemed so easy when king Minos did it.

Daniel was now up on the roof, and the Ashrak must have noticed it because he left King Minos alone and lying on the roof.

"Look out!" king Minos screamed. "Dive to the left!"

Daniel ducked as far to the left as he dared without falling of the roof, and a few moments later king Minos had thrown himself into the Ashrak, launching it off the building into the streets below. The group that would follow them through the streets had apparently not caught up with them, because they were nowhere to be seen.

King Minos didn't seem to hesitate over jumping down, so he jumped. Just when Daniel screamed: "No! Don't!" King Minos made a big jump to the ground, three stories down from where Daniel was standing. Daniel could see him falling, and he saw the kid land as flexible as a cat, perfectly on his legs. He couldn't believe it. He knew no one that would have made such a jump with a perfect landing, without a scratch.

The fight with the Ashrak continued in the street below. Daniel quickly lowered himself one story by climbing off the higher building where he was standing to a lower one, where the guards were. Then Daniel saw the other part of the group, the one that was down in the streets.

"Jack! They're over here! Hurry!" he screamed while pointing down to where king Minos continued to dodge invisible blows.

The other group hurried quickly to king Minos. All of them seemed surprised to see the young king move and dodge around the street. Suddenly king Minos was picked up by something invisible, and was smacked on the ground with a soft 'thump'. He quickly raised his arms to hinder the invisible knife that he knew was heading for his neck, while the Ashrak was hit by a staff blast.

Teal'c had fired his staff just in time to save King Minos. He had hit the Ashrak in the shoulder, thus stopping the blade that was aimed at Minos's throat. The shot had also overloaded the Ashraks cloak, so he was now visible for everyone.

Jack was the first to respond after that as he pumped the Ashrak full of bullets from his gun. Carter immediately followed by shooting her gun empty too. The guards fired their crossbows, but the longer reloading time meant that they could only fire once in the twenty seconds at most.

* * *

However, that time was not necessary because king Minos had grabbed the Ashraks knife while the Ashrak was stunned by the bullets. He was almost dancing around the Ashrak while he was killing it in a rapid succession of stabs to the head, neck and chest. With one final stab right through the neck of the Ashrak, he finished it.

"Stupid asshole" said king Minos as he got up and kicked the lifeless body of the Ashrak, which was filled with holes from the bullets and its own blade. "I'm keeping the blade."

"Thanks for killing the Ashrak." He said, while making a small bow to Teal'c, O'Neill, Carter and the three guards.

"Um guys... could you help us out here?" said Daniel from the roof of the building. "I'm not going to jump down like King Minos, so could you tell us where to get down?"

"There is a lower building near, to your left." Said Jack. "We saw it on the way here."

"OK. Thanks." Daniel said as he started to walk to the building Jack mentioned.

After a few minutes of searching Daniel and the guards on the roof had found the building Jack had mentioned and were climbing down to street level.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N:Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 3 –The Library

* * *

"So you jumped down from up there were Daniel was standing?" asked Jack king Minos.

"Yes. But I stood one story higher. I climbed up there first, and I fought the Ashrak. But the stupid bastard took my blade before I had a chance to use it. Then Daniel climbed up the roof too, and he distracted the Ashrak. Daniel was apparently the bigger threat to the Ashrak, because he let go of me for Daniel. And I nudged him over the edge where he was lying."

"And then you jumped after him. From three stories high?"

"Yep."

"I saw him jumping and he didn't even seem to have trouble landing." Added Daniel.

"Daniel, no-one would have trouble landing. The only problem is not breaking anything in the process." Countered O'Neill. "But how did you not break anything in your landing?" he asked king Minos.

"Reflexes. Plus I did not fall as hard as Daniël wants you to believe. It wasn't that high..."

"It was three stories up! That's fairly high, I'd say." Said Daniël

"Nope it wasn't. But what about our alliance?" asked King Minos, deliberately changing the subject. "I do say that I am interested in an alliance between our two worlds. An alliance without any specific goal, other than to be friends. Protection, trading and visits can then be taken care of afterwards. That would go a lot faster if we were allies."

"So you're interested in an alliance between the people of Avalon and Earth?" asked O'Neill.

"I am. But I take it that you must contact your superiors with the offer?"

"Yep. We have a scheduled contact in about... "O'Neill looked on his watch "three hours. But we can call in earlier if you wish."

"Both times are acceptable. Is there anything you wish to see while you're here, or would you like to call home?" asked king Minos.

"If you have time, I would like to learn more about your culture." Said Daniel.

"That's ok with me. Come to the library in the palace. There is a large collection of ancient tales and stories present."

"Your highness, would you mind if Carter and I didn't join you to the library? We would like to explore the town a bit, and see what's for sale on your market." Asked O'Neill

"That is fine with me. But be careful. Don't get lost in the streets. You can always ask one of my guards the way back to the square."

"Bye guys" said Daniel, as Carter and O'Neill walked away to the market square. "Are you coming, Teal'c?"

"Very well, Daniel Jackson. I will follow you and indulge in the local myths and legends. Perhaps I can render assistance in deciding the origin of the story."

"Are you coming?" king Minos asked.

* * *

Together they walked towards the large palace. The library was situated behind one of the larger doors in the large hall in the palace. Daniel watched in awe as he saw a massive library appear before his eyes. There were big shelves situated everywhere in the library, and there was an enormous collection of books lying on them. The books appeared to be from various ages, some written on thick rolls of a parchment-like substance, others were made from stone tablets with marks carved into them. He also saw some books that looked modern, like they were made by a book press.

He watched in awe as young king Minos led them between the shelves to a large open area with a few tables and chairs. There was no one sitting on the table, but there were a few stacks of neatly arranged books and scrolls.

"This section of the library contains most of the ancient tales and myths that were written down. If you have any questions, you can always ask me." Said King Minos. "I'll stay here." He added.

"The only question I can imagine asking is: 'where do I start?'" said Daniel Jackson.

"I'd suggest that you start with those scrolls over there." He pointed to a pile of older scrolls that were neatly stacked on top of each other in a small pile. "They contain various stories surrounding king Arthur of Kamelot. Your commander mentioned that you have similar tales on Earth."

"That's correct. On Earth, King Arthur was believed to have lived over fourteen hundred years ago, as the king of Britain. Britain is a large island in front of one of the main continents on Earth. He defeated the Saxons that ruled Britain in those times, and established an empire on Britain and the surrounding lands. He had help from a mighty wizard called Merlin, who helped Arthur in finding the magical sword Excalibur. Arthur then used Excalibur to defend his empire from conspiracies from within. Some sources say that Arthur pulled Excalibur from a rock to see if he was the heir of the previous king of Britain, Uther Pendragon. Other sources say that he obtained the sword from the Lady of the Lake. That is in short, the story of Arthur."

"That is ... interesting..." said King Minos. "You will discover many similarities between your stories about king Athur and ours. You might uncover something new by using both our mythological tales about Arthur."

"I will see if I can uncover anything new." Answered Daniel Jackson.

He immediately took one of the scrolls, and started reading. Much to his surprise, he found out that the writing on the scrolls was not Goa'uld, as he had expected. It was a very old form of Latin, which he could read, although not very fast. He was joined by Teal'c, who had found one scroll containing Arthurian legends written in Goa'uld. King Minos took another scroll out of the pile, and started reading too.

Two hours later Daniel had discovered several important findings about Arthurian legends, Teal'c had learned the epic tales around Sir Lancelot, Arthur and Merlin and king Minos had read a large pile of scrolls containing several stories in different, ancient, languages.

* * *

"Hello kids. How's it going?" asked Jack, who had just came walking in. "Had a fun time?"

"Hmm?" mumbled Daniel, who was lost in translating the old texts.

"We have indeed had a 'fun' time, O'Neill. Daniel Jackson has apparently uncovered several new facts around the legends of King Arthur."

"Ah, I see." Answered O'Neill. "Daniel." No answer. "Daniel!" still nothing "DANIEL! WAKE UP!"

"Huh? Did you say something, Jack?"

"No, I screamed. You were lost again."

"But I've been here all the time!"

"I mean lost in translations. Come on. We need to report back to Hammond."

"Can't I stay here? I mean, we only need to send him a message that we're okay."

"No Daniel. We need to get back and report to him about the alliance. Then we can come back and you can bring your historical doo-hickeys."

"Sir, I don't think that doo-hickeys is a word." Said Carter.

"Yes it is. It is used to describe an object from which you do not know the exact name." Said King Minos.

"See. I'm not the only one using it!" said O'Neill.

"All right, I'm coming Jack. But I want to spend some more time here when we come back. If that is all-right with you of course," he asked king Minos.

"You certainly can spend some time here. Just make sure to eat and drink enough while translating. It wouldn't look good for our alliance if you faint in the middle of my library."

"Come, Daniel. Hammond won't like it if we're late." Said Jack.

"I'm coming." Daniel answered.

"I will send a guard to show you the way to the Astria Porta."

* * *

The guard joined SG-1 on their way out of the palace.

"Did you guys see anything interesting on the market?" Daniel asked Sam.

"We went to the market, and we walked around the streets a bit. The market appears to be well organised, as Teal'c had noticed already. The people are friendly, and they did not seem very frightened by our appearance."

"Like they had seen people from other planets more often than we guessed?"

"Yes, exactly. They were not afraid of us. Maybe that was because there were only two of us, and the colonel and I both aren't extremely large in comparison to these people." Answered Sam.

"Now you say it, they do seem a little bit larger than most people on Earth were in the Greek-Roman ages."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, most people in those times weren't much larger than five foot or something. These people are on average a bit taller than that."

"Maybe it's because they have more hygiene than the ancient Romans and Greeks? The city is not littered with garbage, and there appears to be an efficient sewage system, because I've seen no heaps of gong lying around in the streets."

"That could be. We had the same thing on Earth, and we are taller than most other aliens we have met until now. Speaking of Earth, I've discovered that they have legends about King Arthur of Kamelot that are almost similar to our own. The detail of those stories is extraordinary, and they are written in some ancient form of Latin."

"Daniel, I'm sure general Hammond is interested in your stories when we debrief." Interrupted Jack.

"Jack, if I discover more similarities between our peoples history, then maybe I can discover ancient mysteries of the past. There are countless riddles and mysteries in ancient history on Earth that beg to be solved."

"Daniel, the only riddle for me is how to stay awake."

"Ok, Jack. What have you learned from your stroll through the city?" asked Daniel with a bit of acid.

"That the people here are not as primitive as you think. We've seen a lot of fine handwork on the stall at the market, and we've learned that there must be several orchards nearby. There were lots of fruits in the market, too."

"Well.. ok. That is a bit interesting. But wait until I can study in their library. Then I'll learn more interesting things than anyone of us can dream of."

"Daniel, save the 'I have discovered something interesting' speech for Hammond."

"Guys, shall I dial home while you two continue arguing?"

"We're not arguing... But dial home anyway, Carter."

"Right away sir."

The Stargate opened with the usual 'kawoosh' and after they sent their IDC's through SG-1 stepped through the gate.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: just a 'talking' chapter. I'll keep updating every day.

Copyrights (I forgot them in the last chapters): see chapter 1. Goest for the rest of the story too.

Reviews are always welcome!

* * *

Chapter 4 - Debriefing

* * *

"Welcome back, Sg-1. Debrief in 10." Said General Hammond, who waited for the SG team in the Gate room.

"Thank you, sir" answered Jack O'Neill.

The team headed for the infirmary to get a check-up from doctor Frasier. After they had been declared for duty, they headed for the locker rooms to switch to their BDU's. Then they headed for the conference room that overlooked the Stargate, where General Hammond was already waiting.

"Sir." They greeted General Hammond.

"At ease, people." He answered. "Now, what can you tell me about the willingness of the people of P3X-408 to form an alliance?"

"Well, sir," O'Neill started, "their king would be happy to form an alliance, without there being anything obligatory in the alliance. He said that an alliance was to form a bridge of friendship between our two planets. And he said that it would make it easier to discuss trading relationships or issues of protection."

"Do they need protection from the Goa'uld?" asked Hammond.

"From what we have seen, no. Well, they appear to have no weapons more advanced than crossbows, but we have seen that their king could spot a cloaked Ashrak with the naked eye."

"How is that possible? We can only detect an Ashrak assassin through our devices."

"We don't know, sir. We saw him fight one in hand-to-hand combat and apparently he could see the Ashrak coming. He managed to dodge almost all his blows."

"Almost?"

"Well, the Ashrak had a blade and when the Ashrak had pinned king Minos down, Teal'c shot the Ashrak."

"King Minos?"

"It's their leader, sir." Explained Sam. "He looks like a kid, about fifteen or so years old. But he managed to outrun all of us, and he fought the Ashrak in hand-to-hand combat."

"I see." Hammond said. "But what about their people. How advanced are they?"

"Their culture is based on the Roman/Greek culture from about two thousand years ago, but their technology is more of the middle-aged kind." Answered Daniel.

"Technology being...?"

"weapons. They have crossbows, daggers and swords for as far as we could tell, but their medicine is quite advanced and they told us that they have very little problems to safeguard their harvests. King Minos seems to have a hand in that, although I cannot quite understand what hand exactly." Said O'Neill.

"What can you tell us about their soldiers. Do they have Jaffa or other soldiers?"

"Their soldiers are normal humans, but they are well trained and appear to be very organised." Answered Teal'c.

"And what about their culture, Dr. Jackson. You seem eager to tell us."

"Ah, Yes. Their architecture corresponds with the Ancient Romans and Greeks here on Earth, but we did not see any slaves. They have a large library filled with old myths and legends. The part that I have seen corresponds with Arthurian legends here on Earth. The texts that I read were written in a very old form of Latin, which we have rarely encountered before. But Teal'c found some texts written in Goa'uld, and we saw several stone tablets with other languages on them."

"Do they write on stone tablets?" Hammond interrupted Daniel.

"No, they seem to write on a parchment-like substance. But they have many different kinds of writings in their Library. There were large rolls of parchment, or perhaps papyrus, but there were also books that looked a bit like our own, and of course stone tablets. They appeared to have assembled a large collection of written manuscripts from various locations. I have discovered that their legends around king Arthur match for a great deal with our own. But they date further back than most of our own manuscripts, so they might provide better details around the actual king Arthur. And that was only one small part of their large library. The building is huge, and the King gave us permission to access it without hesitation."

"Ok, doctor Jackson. I understand. So these people seem to be several hundreds of years behind us in technological aspects. So how do they protect themselves from attacks by ship, or a large scale invasion through the gate?"

"We asked king Minos that, and he only said that they would take the objects they could use from the Goa'uld, and then send them back through the gate." Answered Jack.

"So you have no idea regarding their defensive capabilities?"

"Other than what we have seen, no sir."

"But they were friendly, and king Minos practically offered an alliance."

"Very well. I will discuss it with the president. Dismissed."

* * *

The team left the conference room and headed for the mess hall. In the mess hall, they got in line for their food. When they got it, they walked together to their usual table in the corner of the mess hall in the SGC.

"What did you think of the alliance with the people from P3X-408?" asked O'Neill.

"Well, I think that there is not much in my league. They don't seem advanced enough to learn really much from them. I think that it's more of Daniels work." Answered Carter.

"I do believe that we can both our peoples can learn something from the other in regards to tactics or fighting style. But I too believe that most of it is in Daniel Jacksons league." Answered Teal'c.

"I'm dying to visit that library again." Answered Daniel shortly. "Next time I'll bring some more archaeologists, to speed up the discovery process. The language on the scrolls I have studied was a very ancient form of Latin, and it seemed as if there were some ancient words in there too. If I can get a translation program running over their texts, then maybe we can discover long-lost languages. But that's not all. I believe that their library may be the key to unlock many secrets from our own history."

"Yea, you mentioned when we walked towards the gate. But I meant to ask how you felt about an alliance with the people from P3X-408." Said Jack.

"Well, they were friendly as far as I could tell, although their king Minos seemed a bit strange. It certainly wasn't normal that he could jump from three stories up and land as smooth as a cat. And before that, he hoisted me up to the roof with one hand. One hand only, and he didn't even seem to have trouble doing it."

"So you're having doubts about the alliance?" asked Jack for clarification.

"No, they were friendly but it just seemed a bit strange. The other guards couldn't do all of that, so it was only king Minos."

"OK, I understand. He seemed a bit strange to me too."

"What makes you say that, sir?" asked Carter.

"Well, most kings we have met either tried to convince us of their divine might and right to rule, or they saw us as gods. That is Goa'uld not included," Jack added when he saw Daniel about to make a argument against him.

"So? King Minos is by far the youngest king we have met until now." Said Carter.

"I'm not complaining, or anything, but it just seemed a little bit... _off_... you know?" he said after searching for the right word.

"Well, you could call hardly any standards for gate travel. Every mission is different altogether." Said Daniel Jackson.

"I do not believe O'Neill is referring to standards, Daniel Jackson. For I sensed a strange power too. It was very vague, but it was very persistent. And it seemed to correspond with king Minos being near." Said Teal'c

"Well, I did not notice anything. So if he was a Goa'uld in disguise I should have sensed him too. But I didn't, so he can't be a Goa'Uld." Said Sam.

"The only thing I'm sensing right now is that this sandwich is delicious." Said O'Neill, bringing the conversation back to more casual topics.

"I think you're right, Sir. These sandwiches are better than usual." Said Carter.

They continued their conversation until everyone had eaten their meals.

"Sir, I'd better get to work. I still have to run some tests on the device that SG-2 uncovered last week." Said Carter.

"The old box-thingy?"asked O'Neill.

"Exactly that one sir. It gives off some very faint energy readings I've never seen before. It seems to react to the presence of people, but I couldn't figure out to exactly what. The energy readings change constantly."

"Well, Carter, I suggest that you start immediately with running some tests on the device, then." O'Neill said dryly.

"Will do, Sir." Said Carter, not understanding the hidden joke in O'Neill's words. "Bye, Sir." She stood up and started walking away.

"Bye, Carter." The rest of the team said.

"I'm going too, sir. I'll do some more research on the ancient form of Latin, and the mysteries surrounding both king Arthur and King Minos." Said Daniel.

"Our King Minos or their?" asked O'Neill.

"If I'm lucky, then both." Answered Daniel before he walked away.

"Well, T, that leaves us two."

"I'm afraid that I also must leave, O'Neill." Said Teal'c. "I have an appointment with several new recruits in the gym. They must be taught the ways of a warrior. And General Hammond requested me to be the one to teach them hand-to-hand combat."

"Well. Then I guess I should finding something to do too..." said O'Neill, as he grabbed his plate to dump the remaining contents into the large storage cart waiting.

* * *

After wandering pointlessly throughout the base for ten minutes, O'Neill decided that he was desperate enough to start doing paperwork. He walked to his office, and sighed in desperation at the sight of the large piles of papers that filled his desk.

"Well, forms, it's just me and you. And coffee, for the next five hours." He said.

Three hours into his endless stacks of forms-to-be-filled and reports-to-be-written O'Neill was awakened from his unpleasant concentration by the phone.

"O'Neill's office," he answered, "The place where endless amounts of paper are dwelling through the ever-growing piles of reports and memo's."

"Colonel, As much as I like the way you've named your office, I need you in the conference room in five." Said general Hammond, not amused by the way O'Neill had named his own office.

"I'll be right there, Sir." O'Neill answered.

* * *

Two minutes later there was a slightly panting O'Neill in the conference room.

"Colonel," Hammond started, "The president has agreed with the alliance between us and the people from P3X-408."

"Avalon, Sir." Jack interrupted. "They call their planet Avalon."

"Very well. He has agreed to the forming of an alliance between our two worlds, without there being anything obligatory in the relationship. I want to send you and the rest of SG-1 to Avalon as soon as possible to inform them of the treaty. Then I want you to invite their leader, or a delegation, over to sign it here."

"I will do, sir. Shall I go and get the rest of the team?" he asked.

"That won't be necessary. They have already been called for. They should arrive here momentarily."

And indeed, Mayor Carter was the first to enter just after General Hammond had said that. She was followed moments later by Daniel Jackson and a slightly sweaty Teal'c.

"People, I'm sending you to P3X-408, or Avalon, as the Colonel told me, to inform them of the treaty. You can then invite their leaders to come over here to sign the contract."

"Very well, Sir." They all said. They walked down to the locker rooms to get a quick shower before they went off-world for the second time that day. Half an hour later the team was standing in the gate room again, and they waited for the gate to dial.

After the usual blue and white 'kawoosh' from the gate, they stepped through, and appeared on the other side.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I hope you like it!

Reviews are always welcome

* * *

Chapter 5 – Problems at home

* * *

"Daniel, we're just here to tell them the news and escort the delegation to the SGC. So no, you can't stay here." Said Jack O'Neill.

"Why not? You'll be back to bring their delegation back, won't you?" answered Daniel.

"Daniel, ask Hammond about an archaeological-geek mission to explore when we're back, ok? So stop whining about it now. The scrolls have been lying there for thousands of years, so they can easily wait another day."

"Hmpf." Mumbled Daniel, who was still not convinced as to why he couldn't stay in Avalon to study in the library.

"Daniel. Stop being angry, please."

Daniel was silent for the rest of the trip to the palace in Avalon. SG-1 entered the large palace of white marble, and walked the hall that led them to the throne room. There they found king Minos.

"Greetings." King Minos said when he saw that SG-1 had come in. "Do you have any news regarding our alliance?"

"We certainly have." Answered O'Neill. "We have prepared a treaty, to seal the alliance. We only need someone to sign it, before it can be considered valid. Do you want to send out a delegation of some sorts, or do you want to come yourself? We're here to provide escort to the SGC."

"the SGC?" asked King Minos.

"Stargate Command. It's our headquarters, the base from where we operate."

"I will not send out a delegation, I will come with you myself. But first I must tell my people that I will be temporarily unavailable. TARIN!" he shouted.

"Yes, my lord?" said Tarin, who came walking into the throne room fast.

"I will go with the Tauri to their home planet, Earth. I will remain there not for long, I'm guessing..." he looked questioningly at O'Neill.

"A day? Two, at most, but probably less." He said.

"I'll be gone for two days maximum. You know how to contact me if there is anything of great urgency. You will have command over the people of Avalon. Keep them safe, Tarin."

"Yes, My lord. I will."

"Then it is settled. I will come with the Tauri to Earth to forge the alliance."

* * *

Sg-1 and King Minos left the palace, and they headed for the Stargate.

"So, Colonel O'Neill. How did you find my acting?"

"Your acting?"

"Yes, the way I talked and behaved myself in the palace. Did you really think I usually talk that way?"

"Well, yes. Most kings do. Well, most kings are older than you, but they all talk with a certain sense of superiority."

"Tell me, do you like that I don't talk to everybody like I'm better than them?"

"Yes, I do. We've encountered many Goa'uld, and their 'I am god and you must obey me or die'-speech was boring after the first time."

"What Goa'uld did you encounter, and are the rumours true that you have killed many Goa'uld already?"

"We've encountered most of the system lords, because we once sent a spy to their meeting. We've met Ba'al, Yu, Sokar, Apophis, Seth, Hathor, Osiris, Ra, Cronus, Heru'ur and a lot more of those bastards that I have forgotten."

"And how many did you kill?"

"A lot. Well, we did not personally kill them all, but we usually set them up against the other, or we raided their strongholds and placed bombs everywhere. With the help of the Tok'ra of course."

"The Tok'ra? Are they still alive? I have always believed that all of them were defeated by Ra a long time ago."

"No, they're a hiding race nowadays. They became our allies after we'd encountered them a few times."

"But tell me, which Goa'ulds did you kill?"

"Apophis, Cronus, Hathor, Heru'ur, Nirrti, Ra, Seth, Sokar and a lot of minor Goa'uld and a lot of jaffa too."

"OK. That's a lot of Goa'uld I can get off my list."

"Your list?"

"List of goa'ulds to kill because they were annoying."

"And how many are exactly on there?"

"Well... All of them, I guess."

"That must be one heck of a list."

"It is, but I usually only add the Goa'uld that attack me. That's still a long list, but it's not a list of all the Goa'uld out there."

"Do the Goa'uld attack a lot?" asked O'Neill.

"Well, they do send a few Jaffa through the Astria Porta every couple of years. They're a great source of weapons and armour."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I said that I usually send them back without anything that is useful to me, did I? Basically, when there is an attack, I keep all their weapons, armour and goods they have with them. Then I send the Jaffa back to where they came from."

"So you have huge amounts of armour and weapons that you have stolen from the Goa'uld?"

"Yes, but they're mostly those ugly staffs they always carry, and of course those snake-like weapons that stun on the first shot, kill with the second and disintegrate with the third."

"A zat'nik'tel?" asked Teal'c, who had ignored King Minos's first comment about the staffs being ugly.

"We call them Zats," added O'Neill.

"I think I'll go with Zats. But I do have a large collection of those weapons stored away."

"Do you steal other things from the Goa'uld, too?" asked Carter.

"Sometimes, yes. If a specific Goa'uld has been severely annoying, I usually sneak to their stronghold and steal a few things."

"A few things being...?" O'Neill asked.

"weapons, naquadah, sometimes some a few fighters and occasionally an Al'kesh. Oh, and armour of course."

"Aren't the Goa'uld going to bombard Avalon if you do that?" asked O'Neill.

"Yes, they usually do. Makes great light shows. They always stop after a few days."

"The system lords don't seem the kind of people that would stop an attack for no reason, so why would they stop attacking Avalon after a few days of bombardment?"

"Because their bombs have no effect, and probably because I like to destroy a ha'tak when I get bored."

"How are you going to destroy a ha'tak, then? The only technology we've encountered that can destroy a ha'tak from the outside is a ship, or at least some kind of advanced space-gun." Asked Carter.

"Well, by throwing cookies at it until it gets an allergic reaction, then wait until it sneezes and then give it an uppercut to the face, duh." Said king Minos jokingly.

"No, seriously. How do you destroy them?" asked Carter again.

"Tickle them until they faint? No?" he said, still with a grin. "Or perhaps throw rock at them until their shields break?"

"Are you going to answer that question seriously or not?" O'Neill asked.

"Nope."

"Argh." O'Neill said dramatically.

"Sir, we're at the gate. Shall I dial home?"

"Yes, do that, Carter." O'Neill said.

They waited in silence as Carter dialled the gate. When the usual 'kawoosh' had subsided, she entered her IDC and waited for confirmation.

"All clear, sir. General Hammond is expecting us."

* * *

They walked through the gate, and when they appeared on the other side, Hammond was standing there to greet them.

"Welcome to the SGC. My name is General Hammond, Commanding officer of this base." He greeted King Minos.

"Thank you, General Hammond. My name is King Minos, I'm the king of Avalon. I believe you have made a treaty concerning our alliance?"

"We certainly have, king Minos."

"Please, call me Minos. Drop the 'king' part. It sounds too formal."

"Ok, Minos. We have the treaty ready in our conference room."

King Minos, General Hammond and SG-1 went to the conference room, where a large stack of papers was lying on the table.

"Is that the treaty?" King Minos asked in amazement.

"Yes." Answered Hammond. "Is there something wrong?"

"It seems a bit... long... don't you think?"

"Most of our treaties are about this long, and the more complicated ones are even longer."

"Aha. I see. I was expecting a piece of paper with 'This treaty seals the alliance between the Tauri of Earth, and the people of Avalon. Let there be friendship between our two peoples as long as this treaty lasts.' Well, that is how long my self-written treaties usually are."

"If the length of the treaty is a problem, I can have it rewritten, if you'd like." Said General Hammond.

"No. It doesn't really matter." Said King Minos. "This treaty will suffice, after I've read it, of course."

"Of course."

Over the course of the next five hours, King Minos read together with General Hammond and Sg-1 through the treaty. At the end of the five hours, the treaty was signed.

"Well, General Hammond, I look forward to our continuous friendship." Said King Minos.

"I do too. But first, I must give you something that will enable you to contact us. We have installed a barrier in front of our gate that prevents anyone from going through without our authorization."

"That is an ingenious idea. It is very uncommon to do that, but I assume you have a countermeasure against the 'kawoosh' from the wormhole?"

"Yes, we do. The barrier, or the iris as we call it, stops matter from reintegrating, but it doesn't hinder radio signals. The device I gave you is called an IDC. It stands for Identification Device Code. If you enter the correct code, we will open the iris and you can safely pass through the gate. The Code is in the package. I trust that you will keep it safe?"

"I will."

"If you'd like, you can stay here for a meal. We've been at this treaty for a long time, so you must be hungry."

"Yes, General. I am. I will stay for a meal."

* * *

They walked together with SG-1 to the mess hall. General Hammond excused himself for not eating together, because he was called away to other business. So SG-1 and King Minos ate together in the mess hall.

"Colonel O'Neill, what is this called?" king Minos asked while pointing at a sandwich.

"That's a sandwich."

"They smell good."

Minos loaded his plate with a few sandwiches. When they all got their food, they walked to SG-1's usual table in the corner. They got an extra chair for King Minos, and they started eating.

"Mmm. I guess they taste good too." King Minos said.

"Colonel O'Neill, does your world have an outside too?" asked King Minos.

"An outside?" O'Neill asked, not understanding the question.

"Yes, an outside, in the open air. For what I've seen your entire planet is underground. I've not one time seen the air and the sky."

"Well, we do have an outside, like any other planet, but this base where we are now is far underground. It was built quite some time ago, when there were a lot of wars. They built it underground for protection. And now this base houses Stargate Command, because this was the best location."

"Completely underground? And how do you counter the vibrations the gate gives when it is powered up?"

"We installed a lot of dampeners in the gate room, partially to hold the gate in place and partially to ease the vibrations." Answered Carter.

"But..." began King Minos, when he suddenly stopped and started staring into nothingness.

"What? What's the matter?" asked Daniel.

"I must leave, now!" king Minos said hastily

"What's the matter?" Jack asked.

"Avalon is under attack."

"I'm coming." Said O'Neill.

* * *

King Minos ran to the gate room as fast as he could.

"You must dial Avalon. I must return home immediately!" he almost screamed to the sergeant in control of the dialling mechanism.

"But I must ask general Hammond first." Said the sergeant, who looked a bit surprised by the sight of the impatient fifteen year-old kid that was ordering him around.

"What's the problem?" General Hammond asked, who came walking down the stairs to see who was making all the sound downstairs.

"I must return to Avalon immediately, General. Avalon is under siege."

"Sergeant, dial the gate. Can I offer any assistance? Medical teams, Marines?" asked Hammond.

"I don't know. I don't know the exact situation, only that it is dire."

"General..." O'Neill panted, when he entered the control room. "Request permission to bring a team of marines and assist king Minos."

"Colonel, you'll have to wait. I will send out a larger team as soon as I have an indication of the situation in Avalon. Now as..." he started as he turned around to face King Minos, who wasn't there anymore.

King Minos hadn't waited for General Hammond to finish, but he started running to the gate room as soon as he saw the gate dialling. Only a split second after the 'kawoosh' had subsided, he dove through.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: May have screwed up the 'universe' a bit. To be short: Anubis is alive and still ugly, Frasier is alive because I didn't like the new doctor and some more changes that will be revealed later.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 6 – Kull trouble

* * *

Once on the other side, Minos immediately sensed something was wrong. There were two of his own guards lying dead on the ground near the DHD. Their bodies were severely burned by a mess of small burn marks. They apparently had managed to shot multiple arrows, because there were a few lying broken around the Stargate.

The guards near the gate were dead, so that meant that the unknown enemy was somewhere in the city, probably. He could try to sense them, but the panic from the people would mess everything up. He would need to get closer to the enemy to sense them with accuracy.

He ran quickly to the large market square. On the way to the market square he saw a lot of dead bodies lying on the ground. The enemies that invaded Avalon must be extremely resilient or quick. He could match quick, but resilient could be a problem. Lucky enough he had brought his trusted sword, Excalibur. It wasn't the actual Excalibur forged by the ancient Myrrdin, but it came close.

Minos increased his pace when he sensed that most civilians were safe, hiding deeper in the city and further from the unknown enemies. He'd go to all of them as soon as those bastardly enemies were dead!

When descended the stairs to the large market square, he saw two completely black-clad figures standing between the stalls. He jumped down the stairs as silently as he could, and he hid behind the curtain of one of the stalls.

* * *

The black-clad men did not seem to have noticed Minos, because they walked away towards the palace. Minos quickly ran towards his own palace as silent as he could, under the cover of various market stalls. Soon he had overtaken the two black-armoured warriors, and he waited for them to pass past him. He was hidden under one of the larger stalls, and he drew Excalibur. Those bastards would pay for every men they had killed today!

With almost supernatural speed Minos jumped from under the stall and sliced with Excalibur right through the left leg of the first warrior. The armour was stronger than he expected, because Excalibur did not slice clean through. It was stuck between the leg of the warrior, and the outer plating of the strong black armour.

The warrior noticed him, and turned around. The other turned around too, to see what all the commotion was about. They both moved their arms so that their wrist-guns faced Minos. Minos was quick enough to evade their shots, and he had freed Excalibur with a strong pull from the leg of the first warrior. Both warriors fired multiple shots of yellowish energy at Minos, but they missed. Minos had used his speed to sneak behind one of the stalls again.

He hid behind one of the stalls as the warriors fired on him. Under the cover of the smoke the energy bolts made, he quickly ran to another stall, some mere metres away from the firing warriors. The left warrior, the one whose leg he had just almost cut in half, seemed to be standing less stable.

Minos quickly crouched under the market stalls, and moved as close as he dared towards the warriors. With an enormous jump he spanned the distance from the stall to the first warrior. Before that warrior knew it, there was a large sword in his neck. Minos grabbed the first warriors arm-with-wrist-gun and he fired it at the second warrior.

* * *

Strangely enough, the bolts of energy seemed to be absorbed by the armour. He realised that it would have no effect, so he grabbed Excalibur from the first warrior's neck as he ducked behind the second warrior. While the second warrior was turning around, Minos used his confusion to strike a blow with Excalibur straight to the neck of the warrior. It worked, as the warrior fell down to the ground, stunned. Then Minos saw something moving from the corner of his eyes, and he ducked away immediately.

The first warrior had miraculously survived Excalibur's blow to the neck, and was now firing his gun at Minos, who had only barely enough time to evade the bolts. He ducked away, and launched himself straight towards the arm of the warrior. He grabbed it, and several quick blows from Excalibur later the first warrior had no arm anymore.

He stood up, but immediately fell down again. His right leg had apparently been hit by one of the energy bolts, because his pants were burned, and the flesh underneath looked scorched and scarred. In his fall, he had the reflexes to spin around and swing Excalibur into the neck of the stunned warrior, decapitating him.

The other warrior had finally succumbed to his wounds, and it was good too, because Minos couldn't run anymore with his injured leg. Luckily for him, help was underway. He heard panting, and he turned around, which was harder with his injured leg. Sg-1, and a few other people he didn't recognise were running directly to him from the large stairs on the end of the market.

* * *

"Hi Colonel!" he said like nothing happened.

"Hi. Did you kill those?" O'Neill asked in amazement.

"Yep. They were harder to kill than I expected. Their armour is stronger than that of a normal Goa'uld, and their wrist guns do a lot of damage."

"We've seen these before. We call them Kull warriors. They're minions of Anubis."

"Anubis? Wasn't he banished for eternity and killed by the system lords?"

"Yeah, we thought that too. But Anubis was never defeated. He ascended partially, and then descended only a few years ago. He has been rebuilding his armies ever since, and he has attacked a lot of system lords already."

"Didn't the system lords put up a fight?"

"They tried, but Anubis was too powerful. Partially because he raided their strongholds with these Kull warriors," O'Neill kicked one of the kulls, "and partially because he had ascended knowledge."

"That explains why Excalibur had trouble slicing them."

"Excalibur?" asked Daniel.

"Yep. Though not the real one, I don't know where Myrrdin, or Merlin as you call him, left it. But it is good enough for me, until now."

"You killed two Kulls with just one sword?" O'Neill asked incredulously.

"Yes. But it was harder than I thought. They managed to hit me with one of those stupid energy bolts from their guns."

"Where?"asked O'Neill.

"My leg." Minos said, as he turned his wounded leg towards O'Neill.

"We could help you heal your leg, if you'd wish. We can carry you to the SGC."

"Carry? I can walk fine by myself." Minos said that, and stood up. But he immediately fell down again. "Ok. I guess not. Maybe I need someone to support me."

"Here, I'll help you," offered Carter, who was closer in length to Minos than O'Neill, so Minos didn't have to reach as far up to get his arm around a shoulder.

"Thanks." He said, as they walked back towards the gate. "Oh, can you bring the arm I dismembered too? I'd like to take a closer look at the gun and their armour. See if I can upgrade Excalibur so that I can slice them better."

* * *

Daniel took the arm from the kull, and together they walked towards the gate. Marines in front, to check if everything was secure. Suddenly they stopped and raised guns, as they saw a small group of armed warriors, armed with various knives and bows.

"Tarin!" Minos exclaimed.

"My lord? Are you wounded? Where are the warriors that entered the market square?"

"They're dead now. I'd like you to preserve their armour and guns. It is far superior to that of normal Goa'uld. But I must go with the Tauri for now. Their shots hit my leg. They can help heal it. I will send word as soon as I can. But tell everyone that it is safe again."

"I will do that, my lord."

"Oh, and place more men by the gate. You can coat the arrows in Aragnide, but be careful. If you hit anyone with those arrows, he'll die."

"Yes, My lord. I will tell everyone that it is safe to come out. Heal quickly, my lord."

"Thank you, Tarin."

"Come on, let's get you to the SGC." Said O'Neill.

* * *

A few minutes later the entire group reached the gate. O'Neill dialled out, because Carter held Minos. After he'd sent an IDC and got a confirmation, he requested that a medical team stood ready. The entire group walked through the gate, and after it closed Carter helped Minos on one of the gurneys standing by.

"What happened, colonel?" Asked Hammond.

"Well, apparently, sir, there were Kull warriors attacking Avalon." Said Jack.

"How many?"Hammond asked.

"Two. But they were dead by the time we arrived, sir. Oh, and we brought part of them back with us." O'Neill said, as he gestured to Teal'c to show the dismembered arm.

"You'd better get that one to a quarantine room, Teal'c" said Hammond.

Teal'c left the gate room through the large steel door leading towards the corridor.

* * *

"So, colonel, you're telling me that there were two Kull warriors in that village, and that both of them were dead when you arrived?"

"Yes sir. We found king Minos in between the two warriors. I suppose he killed both of them. He apparently had a sword, which he called Excalibur."

"Excalibur? You mean in the legendary sword Excalibur from King Arthur? That sword?"

"No, he mentioned that it wasn't the real Excalibur when Daniel almost jumped from excitement at the name alone. He told us that the real Excalibur was lost by..." O'Neill looked at Daniel questioningly.

"Myrrdin, also known as Merlin."

"Merlin, sir." O'Neill concluded.

"Were there many civilian deaths in Avalon?"

"Well, yes, sir. We saw several dead bodies lying on the main pathway towards the palace, though they were mostly warriors. I'm guessing that the civilians were hiding somewhere, though I don't know where. The Kull warriors didn't appear to want to kill everyone there. They headed straight to the palace, and halfway to the palace, on the large marketplace, we saw Minos slashing around. It was too far to shoot accurately with the speed we were running down the stairs, and by the time we were close enough to hit anything without hitting Minos, the Kulls were already dead."

"And did Minos have any other weapons than this blade, Excalibur?"

"No, sir. It's quite a feat, killing two Kull warriors with only one blade."

"Though he was injured. Is the injury severe, or not?"

"Well, he said that he was hit in the leg by one of those energy bolts from their wrist gun, but he also said that he could stand fine. That was before he fell over and Carter had to support him on the way back."

"So you're saying that he might be boasting things up a bit?"

"No, I'm not saying that, sir. I'm just implying that he may try to walk before he should, and that we should give Janet a head warning."

"I fear you're a little late with that, Colonel. I think king Minos is in the infirmary already."

"I'll check in on him, sir, as soon as I get changed."

"bye, Colonel."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thanks for the reviews so far, I'm looking forward to more of them!

* * *

Chapter 7 – Paperwork

* * *

When Colonel O'Neill had taken a shower and got dressed in his BDUs, he went to the infirmary. When he entered the hallway to the infirmary, he heard voices.

"Don't want to! It stings!" he heard a voice say.

"You'll have to, whether you like it or not!" he heard another voice, this one a bit higher, say.

"No!" the first voice said.

"What's going on here?" asked O'Neill when he entered the infirmary and saw Minos laying on a bed and doctor Frasier trying to grab his arm.

"She wants to sting me with a needle!" Minos said first.

"I'm just trying to take your blood!" said dr. Frasier in return.

"No!" Minos answered.

"Minos, please." O'Neill intermediated. "I won't hurt."

"I don't like needles sticking being stuck into my arm."

"She's just going to take a little of your blood to check if you're healthy."

"Can't she do it without the needle?"

"There are several other ways to take your blood, but none are as painless as the one with the needle."

"What are the other ways?"

"The first one I can think of is knocking you out with a frying pan, but that'll hurt like hell."

"And the second one?"

"That would be... uh, let me see... Ah yes. That would be shooting you."

"Are you sure that it won't hurt?"

"Yes, positive."

Minos stuck his arm out for doctor Frasier.

"Relax, this'll be over soon." She said as she pushed the needle carefully in the stick-thin arm of the young king.

* * *

"Now, that didn't hurt as bad as you'd have expected, now did it?" Frasier asked.

"No, it didn't." Said King Minos mockingly.

"Why are you so afraid of needles?" O'Neill asked when Frasier had walked away to deliver the blood samples to the lab.

"Because the last time I was stabbed with the needle, I was being tortured by a Goa'uld."

"What Goa'uld?"

"Doesn't matter. He's dead now."

"What happened?"

"I broke free, fled to Avalon and returned a few days later."

"And what did you do to him?"

"I stole everything of value in his entire empire, which was only three planets, but still, then I personally ripped the snake out of his head and threw it in an acidic bath."

"Was that it?"

"No. Of course not! I beamed the acidic bath into space, shot it with his own ships and then I beamed halfway into the star of that system."

"Cool. What did you do with the things you stole from his planets?"

"I kept them in storage for further use."

"And what did you do to the civilians on those planets?"

"Well, they were mostly slaves and when I had convinced them that the Goa'uld were not gods, I sent help from Avalon and we've been trading ever since."

"What were those planets called? Maybe we've visited them already..."

"Those planets are called Arachnos, Terrana and Felinis, but you've never visited them."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, they would have told me if visitors came that wanted to forge an alliance."

"Ah, I see. But how's your leg?" O'Neill asked, changing the subject.

"Doctor Frasier says it's not broken and only burned. She reckons it'll heal, as long as I rest it for the next weeks or so."

"And what do you reckon?" O'Neill asked.

"I think it's stupid, but that it's my own fault for being hit by those stupid Kull warriors, as you called them. Oh, and I'm gonna pay Anubis a visit when it's healed."

"Visit, as in...?"

"He may lose several important things. Weapons, naquadah, a few jaffa here and there. Oh, and I'm going to blow the base up from where those Kull warriors came."

"Would you mind if we tagged along with you, when you're going to raid his stronghold?"

"Nope. Just don't get in the way."

"Then I hope your leg heals fast, because I'd love to 'damage' a few possessions of Anubis."

"I know a way to help my leg heal, but Dr. Frasier doesn't like it."

"Well, what's that way then?"

"Sugar."

"What?" O'Neill asked

"Sugar. Saccharine, a sweet, white substance which is solvable in water."

"Oh, that sugar." O'Neill said, though he mainly understood the 'sweet substance' part.

"Yes. That one. If you put some of it in clear water, It'll give you a lot of energy when you drink it. Plus, the taste is good."

"I'm not so sure about the more-energy part. Frasier did say that your leg needed rest, didn't she?"

"Relax, Colonel. I'll use the energy to speed up the healing process of my leg."

Colonel O'Neill walked out of the infirmary to get some sugar for King Minos.

* * *

"Colonel!" whispered Dr. Frasier from behind him. "You're not actually thinking about giving him water with added sugar? The last thing he needs right now is to bounce around my infirmary with that leg of his. So NO SUGAR, do I make myself clear?" she asked with a bit of acid.

"Yes doctor." Said O'Neill reluctantly, because he knew he'd get in trouble if he'd cause problems in the infirmary.

"Good." Dr. Frasier said, still with a hint of acid in her voice.

* * *

Over the course of the remainder of the day, O'Neill divided his time between the usual stacks of paperwork and visiting the rest of SG-1 and King Minos in the infirmary. But when he checked on Minos near the end of the day, he wasn't in the infirmary anymore.

"Doc!" he called Frasier.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Where's Minos?"

"He wanted to see Carter, to see if she could help him understand the Kull armour, I think."

"Thanks, Doc." O'Neill said as he walked away. He found king Minos in Carters lab, together with Carter, bent over a small piece of the Kull armour."

"Howdy, kids." O'Neill said.

"Hello, Sir." Carter answered. "We were just studying the Kull armour under the microscope. Their energy-distributing patterns are quite fascinating."

"Energy-distributing-patterns?" O'Neill asked questioningly.

"The way they absorb the energy blasts from staff weapons and Zats, sir."

"A. Now that I can understand. What did you learn?"

"Well, we discovered a small flaw in their patterns, Sir. If a powerful enough bolt is fired with the right frequency on the right spot, we can disable their armour."

"So, Kapow, Kapow, Kaboom?"

"Yes sir," Carter said with a smirk, "that's the simple way. We'd have to fire about six bolts or so on exactly the same spot to disable the armour."

"And they'd have to be fired in a really short amount of time to do any damage. Wait too long, and the effect will wear off." Added King Minos.

"Wouldn't firing one continuous beam have more effect?" asked O'Neill.

"No. The armour can then absorb the energy after the initial blast has dissipated." Answered Carter.

"And do you have any ideas for a weapon that can use this?"

"No sir, but I'm working on it." Said Carter.

"I do." Said Minos.

"What did you have in mind?" asked Carter.

"It's a gun like you have, but a bit modified. There are six specially-made bullets in six separate chambers in a circle around one opening. A power source located directly behind those chambers powers up the bullets. Once you pull the trigger, the bullets will be fired. I'm thinking about two modes. One that fires all six bullets, and one that fires only three of them, to stun the Kulls but not kill them."

"I wasn't expecting that..." said O'Neill in amazement as the young king rattled off his idea.

"That's a good idea, but what power source did you have in mind?" asked Carter

"I hadn't figured that out completely yet. It must be small enough to carry around and yet powerful enough to charge all six bullets in a relatively small amount of time. Maybe liquid naquadah? It powers the usual Goa'uld weapons."

"But how do we alter the frequency of the energized bullets?" asked Carter.

"Guys, I'm out of here, before my brain overloads." Said O'Neill.

"Bye." Said Minos

"Goodbye, Sir." Said Carter.

* * *

O'Neill left the room, leaving the two scientists behind. He was quite amazed that king Minos was just as smart as Carter. He'd expected a king to be smart, but not scientist-smart like Carter. He shrugged it off and paid a visit to Daniel, whose lab was just around the corner.

"Daniel. What-cha doing?" O'Neill asked.

He waited for an answer, but none came from the archaeologist who was bent over the remains of something old.

"Daniel."

Still no answer

"DANIEL!" O'Neill yelled.

"Huh? Oh, hi Jack. Did you ask something?"

"Yes. I asked what you were doing." O'Neill answered.

"I was studying the remains of the vase that SG-4 brought back last week."

"And, what did you find?"

"The vase belongs to a society long gone, but they never reached further than the Ancient Greeks, in particular the Archaic period from somewhere in the seventh century BC. The vase is quite large, at least compared to the vases we have on Earth from that time, but it is richly decorated, well, at least for the archaic period. There are several patterns on the vase, which may symbolize the routes those people took to get from oasis to oasis. There are many lines of different sizes, and where they have corners there are also little dots." Daniel interrupted himself to see if Jack was getting all this.

"Jack, It's a map." He explained.

"Oh. Now I get it. " Jack said. "You should really work on you English. I can barely understand you, just like Carter when she's excited about a new thing to investigate."

"Yeah, what's Carter doing actually? She sounded very excited about the armour of the Kulls."

"She's working on it. She'd found something about an electrical something pattern, and now she's working with Minos on building a gun that can kill those stupid Kulls."

"She's working with Minos? Shouldn't he be in the infirmary?"

"Frasier said he could walk with crutches and that he wanted to get out, so she released him."

"And now he's working with Carter to build a gun? That's pretty impressive for a kid his age."

"We still don't know exactly how old he is, Daniel."

"He looks fifteen or so."

"We've met a lot of aliens that were way older than we estimated. Teal'c is a lot older than me, but he doesn't look like it too? And Bra'tac? None of us would say he'd be about one hundred and fifty years old, now would we?"

"Ok Jack, you're right."

"Yes! One in a row. That's a personal record!" said Jack.

"But he still looks like fifteen."

"Daniel, stop it and get back to your vase-thingy."

"Ok." Daniel did not need to hear that twice, because as soon as Jack had said that, he was busy again with the markings on the vase.

* * *

Jack was bored again, because Daniel would only be interested in the vase for the next couple of hours, Carter and Minos would do scientific thingies way out of his league and he didn't want to have a permanent headache for the rest of the week, so he went to the only place where he could go at that time, the gym.

"Hi Teal'c," Jack said as he entered the gym.

"Greeting, O'Neill."

"What-cha doing?"

"I am training, O'Neill."

"Ah. I see. Wasn't expecting that." Said O'Neill sarcastically.

"I must train to keep my strength at a sufficient level, O'Neill."

"Yeah, I know."

Teal'c was obviously not in the mood to talk right now, as usual, so O'Neill decided that he'd better enslave himself to the almighty gods of paperwork once again. He left the sweaty-smelling gym and walked back through the long corridors to his own office, where large mountains of paperwork were waiting for him.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: If anything feels out of character plz let me know.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 8 presentations and an Ashrak?

* * *

"Sirs, We're presenting you the anti-armour gun." Carter and Minos stood in the conference room where several high-ranking military officials, including O'Neill and General Hammond, were present. There were also several scientists, who helped design the weapon from area 51.

"Its primary function is to defeat the Kull warriors that form a threat to our planets. It was designed with the help of King Minos." She gestured to the young king. "and the scientists of area 51." She stopped for a breathing break.

"The armour that the Kull warriors of Anubis are wearing, is impossible to damage with other energy weapons because it absorbs the energy, and it is nigh impenetrable by normal bullets. The kinetic energy of a block of metal weighing about twenty kilograms flying with five times the speed of sound is needed to do enough damage to their armour to kill the host."

"But this weapon uses a different kind of damage. We've discovered a fatal flaw in the way that the armour spreads out the energy from a usual staff blast. If you fire several bullets, about five or six, extremely quick at exactly the same spot and with exactly the right amount and frequency of energy, then the armour will explode, effectively killing the soldier within.

That's why we have designed the anti-armour gun. It can disable any kind of armour that absorbs energy because we've enabled it to change frequencies. It fires specially made bullets which contain a small energy storage device, which unleashes the energy within on impact. The energy source of the gun is liquid naquadah, the same amount as used in staff weapons.

The gun is not really heavy, but it is quite large. Larger than our standard guns, but it is highly effective. We've tested it on a piece of armour of a Kull warrior. The explosive force was enough to wipe out the Kull warrior itself and several men standing close around it. We have sent the blueprints to Area 51, and they have built several guns. We can start equipping them to the teams most likely to encounter Kull warriors on their missions immediately.

The gun works exactly like our own guns, including the reload. There is a short waiting period between two shots too, because the bullets must be charged first. The waiting period is only one to two seconds. We have also produced several magazines of the special bullets. There is a production line being set up in area 51 to make a small supply of them."

* * *

After Samantha Carter had finished her presentation, the various officials fell into chatter. After a few minutes of this chatter, General Hammond ushered the room into silence.

"People, If you have any urgent questions, I recommend you ask them now. This meeting is ending in ten minutes. We would like the opinion of the president as soon as possible, so we can use these guns against the Kull warriors.

"Major Carter, are the six bullets really necessary to kill one warrior?" asked the representative of the white house

"Yes. But we have installed another mode on the gun in which only three bullets are used, thus stunning the warrior temporarily. But it takes all the six bullets to completely destroy their armour and kill the warrior inside."

"What material are the bullets made from?" asked one of the higher ranking military officials.

"The bullets themselves are made from lead, but the energy storage device inside uses a small amount of red mercury to store the energy."

"Is it really necessary to use red Mercury for energy storage?"

"Well, we could have used naquadah, but that would put enormous pressure on our naquadah supplies, and it would severely limit the amount of bullets we'd be able to make."

"How many guns are you able to make within the next week?" asked another official.

"We have so far built five guns, but with the right resources we can build around a hundred more by the end of the week. We have a small supply of bullets, about a hundred, but we can make a lot more once we automatize the process."

"Are these guns able to be deployed into the field directly?"

"Yes, they've been tested on various pieces of Kull armour so far, and they worked perfectly."

"Thank you for the presentation, Major Carter." Hammond interrupted the officials before they could ask any more questions. Everyone except O'Neill, Hammond, Carter and Minos left the room.

* * *

"Well, that went ok. We can finally defend ourselves against the Kull."

"We still have to wait for permission from higher up, Colonel." said General Hammond.

"Oh. Well I guess we should start praying, sir." O'Neill said, smirking at his own joke.

"The only thing you should be praying for, Colonel O'Neill, is that the paperwork does itself." Hammond retorted, though the amusement could be read from his face. "Dismissed, people."

O'Neill, Carter and Minos walked out of the room.

"I suggest we get something to eat."

"Good idea, sir. " answered Carter.

"Yeah, I'm hungry too." Added Minos.

* * *

They walked to the mess hall together. They met Daniel halfway, who was awakened from his studies by his stomach, who complained that he had missed lunch already.

"Hi guys."

"Hi Daniel. Finally back into the land of the living?" asked O'Neill sarcastically.

"Yep. I'm hungry. So, Sam. How did your presentation go?"

"I almost can't believe we've just designed a completely new gun from scratch in three days." Said Sam. "We just have to wait for the green lights from higher up to put it to use."

"Well, you had a whole team of scientists working at Area 51 too." Said O'Neill.

"No, sir. They helped building the bullets and guns themselves, but they didn't design it. That was just Minos and me. I had never expected you to be so good in designing things." She said to Minos.

"Ah, well. I just made up the ideas. You figured out how to put it together to make it work." He answered.

* * *

"Guys, what ..." Daniel started, but he was interrupted by a large ball of orange energy that was fired from somewhere in front of them. Minos launched himself into Daniel and they both fell against the wall. O'Neill immediately drew his gun to shoot whoever was firing at them, but he couldn't see anything. The corridor in front of them was empty.

Another bolt of energy suddenly came flying out of nowhere, and Carter had only just enough time to duck away. In the meanwhile, Minos had recovered from the fall against the wall, and he was now staring into the corridor in front of them, trying to spot the person that was firing at them.

Suddenly, he must have detected something because he sprinted forward. Another bolt of energy came out of nowhere, and Minos barely managed to evade it by diving towards the right. The momentum of his sprint made him roll forward over the floor, and suddenly he jumped up from the ground like a karate master. He set off from the wall with both feet, turned in midair, and made contact with something invisible.

He kicked the object away as hard as he could, and he heard a loud clash and saw a dent appearing in the wall opposite to where he was now lying on the ground. He stood up as fast as he could while O'Neill and Carter came running towards him, and he tried to kick the object that he had smacked against the wall, but he missed.

O'Neill and Carter now both had pulled their guns, but it was no good if they couldn't see who they were supposed to shoot at. Daniel had run to the other side, to the nearest alarm button. Suddenly, the hallway was filled with bright lights flashing on and off, and a loud siren. A metallic voice stated that level twenty-five was sealed off, although that would have little effect if they didn't know where the invisible assassin was hiding.

Minos stood up and just as he made a dive forward to the invisible assassin, a large yellow bolt of energy came surging out of nowhere again, and this time it his O'Neill in the side. Screaming in pain he fell down, just as Minos had grabbed the things that supposedly were the legs of the invisible assassin, making him fall down too. Minos suddenly grabbed something, and pulled hard. The object came loose.

It was the assassins cloak, which he broke in two pieces thus rendering the assassin visible permanently. Carter came running up to them, and shot the assassin in the legs while it tried to reach his blade with Minos still on top of him.

* * *

"Medical team and security to level 25, corridor C!" she yelled through her communicator.

"Carter, shoot the assassin again, in the arm this time." Said O'Neill weakly, as he tried to reach a sitting position which would ease the pressure off his wounded side.

Carter shot the assassin again, and his struggles became weaker. Daniel came running from the end of the corridor, followed by security and a medical team led by Dr. Frasier.

"Colonel, where did he hit you?" asked Dr. Frasier.

"side." O'Neill grumbled, obviously in pain, while the security team grabbed the assassin and cuffed him.

"Please lay still."

"Like I'm gonna bungee-jump now, Doc."

"Luckily you have no brain damage, colonel. It just appears to be a severely burned, but mostly tissue damage."

"What makes you say I have no brain damage, doc? I'd say that the grey mass up here feels a little clutched up at the moment."

"Colonel, there is no feeling in your brain because there are no nerve endings there. And your brain is not grey, it's blood red."

"But where do the grey hairs come from then?" he asked.

"They..." she stopped as she realised that the colonel was joking with her. "Colonel. This is not funny."

"Why not? I'm finding it quite hilarious." Said King Minos, who was still laying on the floor.

"Are you okay?" asked Carter

"No, I'm just enjoying the feeling of the soft floor over here. My leg hurts like hell."

"Well, what did you do with it?" asked Frasier.

"I kicked an Ashrak in the face. The bastard was wearing a helmet, and I may have hurt something on my way back down."

"We need to get you both to the infirmary, now."

"Frasier and the three nurses hoisted Jack and Minos on two gurneys and brought them to the infirmary, while the security teams searched the perimeter for other Ashraks with special goggles.

"Any idea how the Ashrak came in?" asked O'Neill to Carter, who was walking with them towards the infirmary.

"No, sir. It could have been any dial-in from the gate for the past several days."

"No, it wasn't." Minos butted in, "This Ashrak had only just come through. I'd have noticed him earlier if he had been inside this base longer.

"But he was invisible. How did you notice him in the first place?" asked O'Neill.

"by smelling, and then looking concentrated." Answered Minos

"By smelling?" O'Neill asked incredulously.

"How's that possible. We've tested the cloak of an captured Ashrak several times, but even with a microscope we couldn't detect anything visual. We've only managed to see them so far because they still give off heat."

"Yes, I can."

"What?" asked Carter.

"You were going to ask If I could see in the infrared spectrum of light. To answer your question, yes, I can."

"How's that possible?"

"Have you considered mutations?"

"Well, no. I guess it could be explained by that. Though it is really unexpected, because you live on a desert planet, so you would almost immediately be blinded in the infrared spectrum."

"Who said I lived my whole life on Avalon?" Minos asked.

"Well, we just assumed that... Because you where their king."

"Mayor Carter, I'd like to conduct some examinations on my patients. Can you please leave for a while? You can come back in twenty minutes."

"Yeah, ok. Bye sir, Bye Minos." She greeted as she walked away from the beds where the nurses had put O'Neill and Minos.

* * *

"Do these examinations involve needles?" asked Minos.

"No, where just going to check if your leg is broken." Frasier answered.

"Ok. I can live with that."Minos said.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I hope my attempts a humouring you all will bring smiles to your faces.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 9 – Revelations part 1

* * *

"Then I grabbed her and threw her in the cryogenic tank. And that was the end of that stupid bitch Hathor." Finished Jack O'Neill.

"As much as I'd love to hear your story again, Colonel," said Dr. Frasier who came walking in with test results, "I have news for both of you."

"Good news or bad news?" asked O'Neill.

"Good news, I suppose. Well, as good as it gets in here."

"You're saying we can go home?" asked O'Neill.

"No, not that good. But you, sir, are going to have to take it easy the next couple of weeks. You have no major damage to your internal organs, but you'll have to give your side some rest. It's badly burned, and It will take some time to heal."

"And you," Frasier said to the young king Minos, "are just as lucky. The bone is fractured, but it has broken almost exceptionally clean. We won't need to operate it, but you do need to wear a cast for four weeks or so."

"That means no walking?" Minos asked.

"No walking for the first two weeks, and after that you still have to take it easy. And you have to stay in the infirmary for at least two days, to give your leg a quick start."

"Aww man." Started O'Neill. "You said you had good news."

"This is good news, considering what it could have been, being shot up by an Ashrak and jumping from high up on an injured leg."

"D'oh!" O'Neill said, quoting Homer Simpson.

"What does 'D'oh' mean?" asked King Minos

"It's a quote, from the Simpsons. It means as much as 'oh shit', I think." Answered O'Neill

"What are the Simpsons?" Minos asked.

"That's a television show... wait, I have a dvd box here on base, in my office. If we can get it, I'll show it to ya." O'Neill said.

"But neither of us can leave the infirmary right now." Said King Minos. "Or I fear Dr. Frasier will hit us back into bed."

* * *

"Carter!" O'Neill exclaimed, as he saw Carter walking in.

"Hi sir, Hi Minos." She said. "What's the news?"

"Well, we both are locked in the infirmary for a few days, and I must take it easy for a few weeks. I think that means paperwork." O'Neill answered.

"And Dr. Frasier is going to put my leg in a cast and I can't move for two weeks. Then another two weeks before the cast can come off." Added Minos.

"That's not really good. Did Dr. Frasier said it was good news or bad news?" asked Carter.

"Good news, but I'm doubting that." Answered O'Neill. "Speaking about good news, can you get me that dvd-box of the Simpsons that's in my office? It's boring in here."

"Yes sir, I'll get it for you." Said Carter.

She left the infirmary.

* * *

"I'm bored." Said Minos. "And I'm hungry."

"Yeah, me too." Said O'Neill. "Doc!"

"Yes?" asked Dr. Frasier.

"Can we get something to eat?"

"I'll give you the card." She handed them the card with the menu on it.

"Thanks, Doc." O'Neill said.

Ten minutes later both patients were lying on their beds, eating their dinner. O'Neill had chosen for the salad with macaroni and cheese, and Minos had the macaroni with cheese too. Then Daniel, Carter and Teal'c came in.

"Hi guys." O'Neill said.

"Hi." Said the other members of Sg-1.

"Sir. General Hammond contacted the Tok'ra. They sent Jacob here, together with Anise, to check out the gun we've designed."

"Anise? The scientist that hooked us up to the wrist-thingies?" O'Neill asked.

"Yes sir, that one."

"That was one cool adventure we had back then. Except for the nearly-dying part, then." Said Jack.

Then Jacob and Anise walked in.

"howdy, Jack." Said Jacob Carter.

"Greetings." Said Anise.

"Hi Selmak." Said Minos before anyone got a chance to greet him.

"Greetings... Minos!" Exclaimed Selmak, who had taken control over Jacob by the sight of his old friend. "That was a long time since we last met, old friend."

"Wait. You two know each other?" asked O'Neill.

"Yes." Answered Selmak. "I have known Minos for a long time. The last time we met was when Ra attacked our base a long time ago. I had presumed that you were killed in the process." He said to Minos.

"And I thought the Tok'ra were defeated in that battle. Luckily it seems that we were both wrong."

* * *

"Wait. How long was that battle ago?" asked Jack.

"My guess is fifteen hundred years or so, but memories from that long ago are a bit vague and dusty." Answered Selmak.

"It was fifteen hundred eighty-two years ago, according to the Tauri calendar."

"Wow. That's unexpected." Said Carter.

"What?" asked Minos.

"We guessed that you were fifteen years old, not fifteen hundred." Answered Carter.

"Actually," Selmak started, "He looked exactly like this back then too. Now we're talking about it, he looked that way for as long as I can remember. That must be somewhere about two thousand years ago, I think."

"Are you going to tell us how old you are, exactly?" asked Carter.

"Nope."

"Why not?" asked O'Neill.

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Because fifteen equals Thursday."

"What?"

"Because fifteen equals Thursday." Minos repeated.

"Good to see you haven't changed a bit in all those years, Minos." Said Selmak.

"Good to see you too, Selmak. Now, are you going to introduce me to your new host?" asked Minos.

"Hi. I'm Jacob Carter." Said Jacob as he reached out to shake Minos's hand.

"Carter, as in the same Carter as Sam?"

"Exactly the one."

"Greetings. My name is Anise." Said Anise. "And my name is Freya." Said Freya, Anises host.

"Hello. I'm Minos. I'm was an ally of the Tok'ra, until we lost each other." Minos said.

"Yeah, come to speak of it, where have you been all that time?" asked Selmak.

"I found Avalon soon after the battle, and the people there helped me heal. In turn, I protected them and over time I became their king."

"Avalon?" asked Selmak. "You named your home after the final resting place of Artorius?"

"Yep. I couldn't pronounce the planets original name, so I renamed it."

"Wait. Artorius is king Arthur?" asked Daniel.

"Yes. Artorius was his original name. I knew him for a long time. He was my apprentice for several years, before he founded the round table."

"You were on Earth during that time?" Daniel asked.

"If by that time you mean around four hundred years after the start of your year-count, then yes. But I've been here longer than that. I helped your peoples uprising against Ra by slaying a lot of Horus Guards that defended his Ha'tak."

"Wow. That's impressive." Carter said.

"Well, the Horus Guards are pretty crappy fighters, so the only challenge was Ra himself. And he fled before I could 'damage' him."

"And Ra did not attack from his Ha'tak?" asked Teal'c, who was curious as to why the Goa'uld supreme system lord had not followed his own standard technique.

"Nope. I don't know why he did it."

"So you've been active throughout the history on Earth until... sixteen hundred years ago?" asked Daniel.

"I was here on earth, but I wasn't really actively playing a part in history. Until I decided that it was better to bury the gate here. I instructed the people to do that, and after I went through they did. But apart from that I mostly fought in the shadows against the Goa'uld." Minos said.

* * *

"Are there any more secrets about you that we ought to know?" asked O'Neill.

"Yep. Hundreds, possibly thousands. But I'm not going to tell them. That would get all the fun out of discovering them yourselves." Minos answered.

"The fun?" asked Sam incredulously.

"Yes, exactly. What fun is a puzzle when you know all the answers already?"

"Enough fun to build a paper airplane." Answered Jack O'Neill.

"As much as I like your way of thinking, Colonel, I don't think it's possible to build an aircraft from mysteries. Though if you did succeed in building one, it would be incredibly hard to take down." Minos said.

"Guys, " Jacob started, "I think we have derailed this conversation far enough. Now let us get back to work."

"Work being...?" said O'Neill.

"The anti-armour gun." Finished Anise for him. "We've come here to analyze it. We ourselves have not been able to build a gun successful in destroying a Kull warrior in one shot. If it works as its name suggests, then the Tok'ra would be extremely interested in trading some of those guns with the Tauri."

* * *

"Well, the gun basically works on a flaw in the armour of a Kull." Carter started.

"How is that possible? The armour is molecularly designed, so it does not contain construction flaws." Interjected Anise.

"However, it does contain a flaw." Minos said. "The initial impact of an energy weapons does damage the armour, only once that impact has gone the residual energy from an energy weapon is absorbed by the armour, and then put to use in repairing the damaged part."

"So you're saying that only the front of an energy blast does damage?" asked Anise for confirmation.

"Exactly. If you fire the right amount of bullets that contain enough energy on exactly the same spot on the Kull's armour, you can overload the armour. Then all the energy-reserves that are stored in the armour will be released, thus killing the Kull in one large explosion." Said Carter.

"How could you find out? We have been studying the armour of an captured Kull warrior several months now, but we have not found a way to overload the energy-dissipation-system yet."

"We put it under a microscope and we tried to electrocute it." Said Minos. "Every time you shock it, the armour is damaged a little bit from the initial blast, but then repairs itself. That process is visible from under a microscope."

"But wait a minute." Interjected O'Neill. "You managed to dismember and decapitate two Kull warriors with just a sword on Avalon!"

"You didn't think I named my sword Excalibur because I only liked the name, did you?" said Minos.

"Well, yes. Actually, I did."

"My own sword Excalibur was based on the original Excalibur, designed by Myrrdin. Unfortunately, that sword is now lost, so I had to make my own."

"And how does it work?" asked Carter curiously.

"It uses the energy of the wearer to power itself up. But it takes special skills to utilize the power correctly, and it takes a lifetime to train those skills." Said Minos.

"A lifetime being...? " asked O'Neill.

"Roughly a century, but it depends on the person. Some can do it in twenty years, other take three-hundred."

"Can Tok'ra also learn those skills?" asked Anise.

"Well, it depends. The Goa'uld cannot, because that power only humans have. But I have never tried to learn the skills to one of the Tok'ra. They form a friendship with their hosts, so perhaps they can learn it. Though I'm not really sure."

"How does your sword, Excalibur, transfer the power from the wearer to itself, and utilize it? That must be very complex technologies, because we never heard from such technology before." Said Selmak.

"Yes you have, although you weren't really aware of it. Several technologies of the Ancients work that way. Even the Stargate, though not as obvious. And it takes special training to 'communicate' with a Stargate in the same way I can communicate with Excalibur."

"Communicate?" said Anise.

"Yes, communicate. Transfer thoughts from one place to another through various ways. One of them is touch. It takes talent to be able to communicate by touch alone, and only very little humans have that talent." Said Minos. "Oh, by the way, colonel. A friend of yours wants to speak with you. Bye!"

"What do..." O'Neill started, but he never finished because he was beamed away.

"How did you know?" asked Carter who had recognized the transporter as Asgard.

"I heard him coming." Minos answered.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I hope you like this chapter

Reviews are always welcome!

* * *

Chapter 10 – Revelations part 2

* * *

"... you mean by that?" O'Neill said that when he was transported away by the Asgard Thor, supreme commander of the Asgard Fleet, and good friend of O'Neill.

"Ow!" Jack said when he landed painfully on the floor with his still-injured side.

"Greetings, O'Neill." Said Thor, a little pink alien with an extremely thin body, and arms and legs just as thin, but a large head.

"Hi, Thor." Said O'Neill, who kept lying on the floor.

"Were you injured during transport?" Thor asked when he saw that O'Neill didn't stand up from the floor.

"No. Well, I am injured, but not from your transporter." O'Neill answered.

"I see. Let me transport you into a medical chamber, where you will be healed." Thor said as he walked back to the control console and moved one of the glowing stones.

O'Neill saw another bright blue flash and suddenly he was in a medical chamber. Immediately he felt the Asgard healing devices tend to his wound and within seconds, it was healed. Then he was transported back to the bridge of Thor's ship.

"Thanks." O'Neill said.

"I am afraid we need your help, O'Neill." Thor said.

"Are the replicators being a problem again?" O'Neill asked.

"Not more than usual. But that is not why I am here. We may have found an permanent solution to the replicators." Thor said. "As you may..."

"Wait up, Thor. I think my team needs to hear this too. Can you beam both of us down to the infirmary in the SGC?"

"Very well." Thor said, as he walked back to his control console and moved a blue stone.

* * *

Down in the infirmary of the SGC, Thor and O'Neill arrived in two blue flashes of light.

"Greetings." Thor said.

"Hello Thor." Sam and Daniel said.

"Greetings, Thor." Said Teal'c

"Greetings." Thor said to Jacob and Anise. "My name is Thor, supreme commander of the Asgard fleet."

"Greetings. My name is Selmak." Said Selmak. "And I'm Jacob. Nice to meet you." Said Jacob.

"Greetings, Thor. My name is Anise,' said Anise. "And I'm Freya." Added Freya.

"Hello, Thor." Said King Minos. "Long time no see, eh?"

"Minos! This is indeed a wonderful coincidence." Thor said, seeming really surprised by Minos's presence. "I did not detect you on my scanners."

"I was aiming for the surprise." Minos said. "But how's it going with the Asgard?"

"I am afraid that it is not well with the Asgard as a race. We are dying from the effects of cloning, and we are being defeated by the replicators time and time again."

"Replicators?" Minos said. "As in the Ancient Replicator-blocks?"

"They have evolved, and they now pose an enormous threat to our galaxy. The Tauri helped us a lot by teaching us to shoot ballistic objects at the replicators, but they have evolved even more. Some are now nanobots, capable of resisting almost anything. That is why I am here."

"Are you going to blow them up?" Minos suggested.

"On the contrary. We are going to shut them down. That is why we have come here, to Earth."

"To Earth?" Daniel asked. "Why Earth?"

"Because as you may or may not know, the Ancients fled here after they were defeated in Atlantis. Their species mixed up with yours, and some humans on earth posses the talents necessary to operate Ancient technology."

"Yeah, Minos told us about those powers." Carter said.

"I was going to ask your permission to scout the entire planet for individuals that posses such talents like O'Neill, but that will no longer be necessary." Thor said.

"Wait a minute!" said O'Neill. "I posses that power too?"

"You have inherited a part of the ancient genetic structure. Thus you are able to have the ability to control Ancient technology. But it takes talent too to control the Ancient technology that I came for. Though that is now no longer necessary." Thor said.

"Why not?" asked Daniel.

"Because we now have one of the Ancients themselves." Thor said. "Minos, will you be so kind as to help the Asgard shut down the replicators?"

* * *

"Ok. But first I need some sugar. Well, a lot of sugar." Minos said as everybody else in the room was stunned by the revelation that Minos was an Ancient.

"What for?" asked Thor.

"Well, I was shot too, just like O'Neill, But I never liked the Asgard healing devices. Plus the power required to control the Replicators and to shut them down completely is immense. I need to be well prepared, and that means I'll need to have a sugar rush in my system."

"I can synthesize some sugar immediately." Said Thor.

"I'll get a glass and some water." Carter opted.

"Thanks." Minos said as he got the glass of water from Sam and the sugar from Thor.

He added the sugar to the water, and drank it down completely in one go.

"That must be awfully sweet." Said Jacob.

"Not at all. It's delicious." Said Minos. "Now let's fix my leg."

He pulled up the leg from his pants to show the bare flesh that was shot by an energy blast from a Kull, and then broken by the Ashrak. He moved his hands on top of the damaged parts, and concentrated. The flesh and skin healed immediately, and Minos stood up on his no-longer broken leg.

"All set." Minos said.

"Wow. That's quite amazing." Said Daniel.

"Now, Thor. I need a lot more sugar if I want to have enough power to control all the replicators. And I don't think you'd want to waste so much energy on making it for me, so I'm guessing that I'll have to use one of my reserves."

"Your reserves?" O'Neill asked.

"Yep. Lots of sugar stored away safe and sound on almost every planet I have been to. That includes Earth. But we can beam it directly out of there from your ship, Thor."

"Wait. I don't think Hammond would like it if we go on a long, dangerous mission without saying." O'Neill said.

"It is not necessary for you to come, but I will be happy to take you along with Minos."

"I'll go." Sam and Daniel said.

"I will accompany you too, Thor." Teal'c said.

"Well, Selmak and I would both think we're a little too old for such an adventure." Jacob said. "Is it OK if we stay here, to study the new weapon?"

"Sure thing." said O'Neill. "Just tell Hammond."

"Then I will remain here too, to study your new weapon, Major Carter." Anise said.

"All right. Now we just have to tell Hammond that we're going." O'Neill said.

"I can beam you to him." Suggested Thor.

"Nah, that would be rude. I'll walk." O'Neill said.

"I'll come too." Minos said.

"Very well. Shall I beam you all aboard the Mjollnir?"

"Ok." Carter said.

Thor beamed himself, Carter, Daniel and Teal'c onto the bridge of the Mjollnir.

"Thor, did you name your ship Mjollnir in reference to the legend of the Hammer of Thor called Mjollnir."

"Yes, I did, but actually..."

* * *

Meanwhile, down on the planet, O'Neill and Minos were almost out of the infirmary.

"What's this?" asked Dr. Frasier. "Both of you shouldn't be able to walk, and certainly not leave the infirmary!"

"Well, we got a head start, thanks to Thor and sugar." Minos answered.

"Wait. What?"

"Thor healed O'Neill's wound and I healed my own with a little help from a substance called saccharine, commonly referred to as sugar. Bye." Minos said as he and O'Neill left the infirmary, leaving a stunned Frasier behind.

They arrived in General Hammonds office only minutes later.

"General," O'Neill started, but he was interrupted by Hammond.

"What's this? Colonel, Minos, you should both be in the infirmary." Hammond said.

"With all due respect, sir, No. It's no longer necessary. Thor healed my side, and Minos here, who turns out to be an Ancient, healed himself." O'Neill stated.

"Thor? Ancient? Here?" Hammond asked.

"Yes sir. Thor needs our help. That's why I came here. Request permission to take SG-1 and Minos to take down the replicators, sir."

"How long will you be away, Colonel?" Hammond asked now he had convinced himself after some thought that this was the best option. After all, if they helped in defeating the sworn enemies of the Asgard, the Asgard would be able to help defend Earth against Goa'uld threats.

"I don't know, Sir. But I don't think it will take that long. Though we might need some supplies for the time. A few weapons and some food, sir."

"Permission granted, Colonel. I take it Thor can beam the supplies out of our storage facilities?"

"I'll ask him, sir."

"Wait. I don't have a communicator." O'Neill noticed.

"Thor. We have permission to go, and general Hammond said we can beam up some supplies. Food, weapons perhaps." Minos said, seemingly against the ceiling. But Thor must have heard it somehow, because almost instantly after Minos said that, both of them were beamed aboard the Mjollnir.

"How did you do that?" O'Neill asked Minos.

"Do what?" Minos asked.

"Talk to Thor from the SGC to here." O'Neill asked.

"I project my voice here. It's a cool trick, because you can add all kinds of sound effects." Minos said.

"We are ready to leave for the Ida galaxy." Thor stated. "The journey will take several hours, because we cannot fly at full speed."

"Why not?" Carter asked.

"Because our naquadria-generators cannot generate enough power to reach maximum speed without using the energy buffers. And we are going to need full energy buffers when we arrive there."

"There being where?" Daniel asked.

"We are currently on course to the Asgard Assembly point, where we will meet up with the rest of the fleet. We will then enter hyperspace after the entire fleet is assembled, and reach the Replicator home planet. There the fleet must give us enough time to transport to the planet, and locate the ancient chair that controls the replicators. However, we must first destroy every replicator vessel in the vicinity of their home planet, otherwise they could just bombard the control chair and we would all be killed." Thor concluded.

Everybody heard the news and prepared to fight. They got their weapons out of the storage room that Thor had beamed them into, and Minos went to look for the sugar that Thor beamed aboard. After a few minutes of searching he entered the bridge where the others were waiting and talking, and he joined them.

* * *

"So, Thor, what's the plan?" O'Neill asked. "Apart from the main lines you've already told us."

"We detected a very weak energy signature from the heart of replicator space. We had not seen such a signature in several thousands of years. We concluded that it must have been one of the Ancient chairs. The energy signature matched the signature of one of those chairs closely, but not exactly. The Asgard High council then devised numerous plans to either take out the replicators by destroying the chair, or shutting every single replicator in the entire galaxy down by using the chair. The last one was deemed most viable. If every Replicator in our entire galaxy was to be destroyed, the following explosions would have annihilated almost three-quarters of the galaxy. Even the we cannot withstand an explosion of that magnitude. That is why we chose to control the replicators, shutting them down.

But there was one problem. The ancient control chairs can only be used by the ancients themselves, or individuals that have a similar genetic makeup. That is why I was sent to Earth, to locate an individual with enough power to control the chair. Luckily we have found one of the Ancients themselves. It would not require such an immense strain that it would most likely kill the person in question, even if we temporarily enhanced their genetic makeup." Thor finished.

"I see. Do you want to hear the story about how the replicators came into existence?" asked Minos.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: May have overdone it a little with the background story... But I hope y'all don't really mind me messing around with Ancient mythology..

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 11 – The Forbidden Ones

* * *

"Yes. I'd love to hear the story about how those little bugs came into existence." Said O'Neill.

"Ok. Let me think." Minos started.

"It was a long time ago. Extremely long, even before my time. Atlantis was still situated on Earth. The Ancients, my people, ruled over the Milky way. There was no war in the Milky Way, only peace. The Goa'uld did not exist yet, and humans had not evolved further than monkeys. It was far before I was born, that the replicators were created.

In that time, the Ancients were at the peak of their power. Mass production of what you call ZPM's meant an everlasting amount of energy available, city ships like Atlantis were situated where we saw fit, and the Ancient fleet patrolled the borders.

But then suspicion rose in the Higher Councils. A meeting was called between all the councils of every planet the Ancients resided upon. During that meeting, from which the contents were never released, the Councillors reached a decision. They were afraid, very afraid. I do not know for what, but they were. Many ships were built.

Hundreds of battle cruisers and warships were constructed by all the shipyards around the empire. All the retired veterans were re-commissioned into war and every city ship was supplied for an everlasting war. The outer colonies were abandoned, and every piece of Ancient technology was either destroyed or was shipped to the strongholds of the Ancients.

Those strongholds, who now go by the names of Earth, Dakara and an uninhabited planet that was called Proclarush Taonas. Many city ships were situated on those planets, and the solar systems of those planets were mined for materials for war. The Ancients destroyed a planet in the process, a planet which resided in the solar system of Earth, between the four rocky planets and the largest gas giant.

The remains of the planet, which contained useless materials for war, formed an asteroid belt. All the naquadah in the solar system of Earth was mined by the Ancients for warships, guns and cannons. Then, one day, they all left. They were sent to fight a great war, greater than any other in the history of the Universe. The memories of the enemy against which they fought are lost in time.

But the fear of that enemy was so grand, that it was forbidden to pronounce their names. They were called 'the Forbidden ones' because of that. Every Ancient, man, woman and even child, was used in the war machine in that time. Either as an soldier on one of the thousands of ships, or as a miner on one of the gigantic mining ships of the Ancients.

The shipyards kept spewing out ships, guns and cannons, but to no avail. The Ancients were losing the war. The Ancients, designers of the Stargate, conquerors of the Milky Way, were being defeated. Battle after battle was fought inside the void around the Milky way, but nothing worked. Ships and soldiers were slaughtered by the hundreds, and the Ancients kept losing ground in the Void.

The forbidden ones kept creeping closer to the borders of the Milky Way. The Ancients were losing this battle for survival. The most advanced race ever to have existed in the known universe was about to be wiped out by an enemy without a name, without a face.

The Ancient war machine turned on maximum capacity. Star systems were being stripped of ore, the energy of entire suns was taken and stored in giant buffers of warships, but at little effect. When the Forbidden ones reached the edge of the Milky Way, a final plan was devised. The final plan that would mean the death of all but a few of the Ancients.

The Ancients built City Ships and drones, the only weapons powerful enough to damage the Forbidden Ones. All City Ships, save for one, were to be sent to the home galaxy of the Forbidden ones. All the Ancients that had survived the onslaught of the Forbidden Ones, were called to Atlantis.

The Ancients plan to end the threat once and for all consisted of two parts, each unbelievably advanced and daring, even for the Ancients. The first part was the destruction of their home galaxy. Every City Ship available was sent to a star in that galaxy. There, the City Ship would enter the star, until they reached its core. The Ancients had devised a weapon that could destroy everything in a light-year radius. Everything, planets, stars, black holes, but also the weapon itself.

The destruction that weapon started was imminent. The exact moment it reached critical energy, the entire solar system it was in was doomed. No escape possible, not even for the Forbidden Ones. Only, the power necessary to utilize such a weapon was immense. Too large for even a city ship, or a whole fleet of them, to handle. It required a star. Every molecule and atom that star existed of fell prey to the enormous power thirst of those weapons. Immediately after it was powered up, whole star systems faded out of existence.

The resulting chaos was immense. The armies of the Forbidden Ones were unable to think. Some fled back to their home galaxy, in an useless quest to render assistance where possible. Others kept attaching the Milky Way, but without their tactics and superior numbers they were killed. Most of them started warring amongst themselves, destroying ships and fighters in the process. But none of them reached the Milky Way.

That is why the second plan of the Ancients was abandoned. That plan would involve the destruction of the entire Milky Way, and probably several galaxies around her. That plan was that Atlantis, the oldest and most powerful of all the Lantean City Ships, was to be sent into the black hole in the middle of the Milky Way. If the weapon was utilized there, the power of the black hole was sufficient to destroy the galaxy.

But the Ancients never needed to utilize that plan. The destruction of their home galaxy had annihilated every hint of economy the Forbidden Ones had. With their supplies dwindling, and different factions warring over the remainder of the fleet, the Forbidden Ones vanished from this area of space.

It was believed for a long time that the Forbidden Ones had vanished from this area of space. The Ancients back then were so confident of themselves that they could defeat anything in their path, that they were blind for their own weakness. The war against the Forbidden Ones had destroyed the Empire. Only the Ancient capitol city, Atlantis, remained intact and unscathed on Earth.

Many centuries thereafter, the Ancient population grew. Within time, the Ancients started to regain hints of their old power. Colonies were re-founded on planets long lost, defensive stations that were abandoned after the war were being manned again, and the ancient fleet was trying to rebuild itself.

But the Ancient civilians had enough of the war. They did not trust the power of the high council, so they separated it into different councils, all having only a small piece of the original might of the high council of Atlantis. Over time, the military was becoming less necessary. There were little other intelligent races in the Milky Way that posed a threat. Science flourished. With little else to do, no one to trade with and not enough ships or the will to expand, they turned to science.

After many long years of hard warfare, the knowledge of weapons and shield of the Ancients had reached a halting point. Research and experiments were conducted in other ways, robotics for example. They advanced in that field further than they could ever imagine. Their society had turned back to logic again, instead of war.

It was only natural, with the state of the Empire, that they turned to science when rumours of the Forbidden Ones reached the edges of the galaxy. Rumours became persistent, they turned into stories and those stories turned into the truth. The Forbidden Ones had rebuilt themselves, and they were bent on revenge.

The Ancients however, had bigger troubles. Though the Ancients are immortal in most aspects, they can be killed by violence and disease. Very little children were born in that age, virtually none. Violence, accidents and diseases kept eating away little bits of the Ancient population, one at a time. The Ancients figured they were a not powerful enough to stop the rumours of the Forbidden Ones yet again.

So they turned to science. In one giant effort, all the scientists Atlantis could procure were set on one task. Find a way to destroy the Forbidden Ones, once and for all. The enormous advances in science meant that the Ancients had a head start on the Forbidden Ones. Their ships were technologically superior, but the Forbidden Ones ruled in numbers. Vast fleets of thousands of ships were detected in their home galaxies. Millions upon Billions of soldiers waiting to kill every Ancient they could find.

The Ancients had to stop them. So they built the replicators. Self-replicating blocks that could form themselves from every metal they could find. Intelligent though robotic life-forms, capable of turning a planet into replicators in a matter of months. And they did. The replicators replicated themselves incredibly fast, and within years their numbers far exceeded those of the Forbidden Ones.

The replicators were controlled by the Ancients themselves. For each replicator mother ship, each the size of a small moon, was a control chair. Specifically built so that only that control chair could control a specific mother ship and adjoining fleet. They left for the galaxy of the Forbidden Ones, never to come back.

And they did. All the planets the Forbidden Ones lived on were flooded under a massive wave of replicators that swept over the galaxy like a huge tidal wave over a small beach. Every remnant, every hint of the Forbidden Ones was soon destroyed. They searched galaxies far and wide for any remnants, but they found none.

After the task for which the replicators were created was done, they were abandoned. Most were destroyed, formed into one juggernaut of a mother ship and sent into a black hole. Some were brought back to the Milky Way, to stand guard over the Ancients. But eventually they too were destroyed.

Then the plague came. Out of nothing, suddenly there was a disease that eluded every experiment or drug the ancients threw at it. Even the technology that later became the sarcophagus couldn't offer relief for a prolonged time. The time of the Ancients had come to an end. They spread out their own seeds, a second evolution of themselves, to the planet Atlantis had been living on, and they left.

They travelled for a long time. Incredibly long, there was nothing than Atlantis and the blackness of space, separated from each other by the city's vast shields. The ancients left for the Pegasus Galaxy. I was born that time, but I remained on Earth. Several other Ancients did. I was very young at that time, just barely aware of what happened.

But I do know that there was no technology at all on Earth. The new evolution of the Ancients had only barely begun. We fled to the Nox, a species we had met on previous occasions. They were not as advanced as we were, but it sufficed. The Ancients that remained in the Milky Way led a sheltered life, living in the shadows of civilization instead of the forefront. No more could we be bothered if one planet evolved faster than we had planned. No longer could we be bothered if one sun blew up, annihilating a civilization. No longer, we cared for the actions of others."

Minos stopped talking, and everybody sat in complete silence. Until they were awakened from their thoughts by a beep.

"We have arrived." Said Thor.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: This update is a bit later than usual. My bro stole my laptop again. I hope you like it.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 12 – Asgard vs. Replicators part 1

* * *

The Mjollnir, Thor's flagship, dropped out of hyperspace in the Ida galaxy, on the edge of replicator territory. Everybody on the bridge of the Mjollnir looked expectantly to the front view screen on the bridge. Thor opened it up, and everybody on board was awed.

In front of them was the bulk of the Asgard fleet, the most advanced fleet in two galaxies. The Asgard were a race not built for war, but for science. It was only a few years ago, when they had encountered the replicators, that they needed to build ships of war. And they had done a remarkable job at that.

The Mjollnir was an O'Neill class warship specifically designed to fight against the replicators. In front of them was an whole fleet of O'Neill class-ships. There were at least ten O'Neill class ships and there were numerous others as well. About fifteen ships of the older Bilskirnir class, double that amount of cruisers and about ten Asgard chariots.

Behind the main fleet of the Asgard was another league of ships. Bombers, supply ships and a medical ship.

* * *

"And I see that you've finally built a reasonable fleet of warships." Minos said.

"That is correct. It was a necessity because of the war with the Replicators." Thor answered.

They were hailed. Thor moved one of the rocks on the control panel, and suddenly the face of another Asgard appeared on the view screen.

"Greetings, Freyr." Thor said.

"Greetings, Thor. You have returned ahead of schedule. I take it that you have found someone with sufficient talents to control the ancient chair?" asked Freyr.

"I have indeed." Thor Answered.

"Hello Freyr. It has been a long time since we last met."

"Minos!" Freyr exclaimed in amazement. "It has indeed been a long time. Perhaps too long. The Asgard are a dying race. The replicators have destroyed most of our might. We have only one planet and the fleet you see here contains all the Asgard ships we could muster."

"I know." Minos answered. "I know more than you might guess."

"Like what?" asked O'Neill.

"Like that it would be very wise to run a long distance scan in the direction of the control chair. You might find something very interesting and disturbing."

"I will run a long range scan immediately." Said Freyr.

"How many more old friends of yours are we gonna meet today?" asked O'Neill to Minos.

"I'm guessing none. Well, not today at least. I think we will have plenty of things to keep all of us busy for a long while."

"Like what?"

"The replicators." Freyr answered. "The long range scan has indeed picked up something interesting. A large replicator fleet is heading this way. They will arrive in this system in several minutes. I will warn the fleet immediately."

"How come we did not know this?" asked Thor.

"We did not run a long distance scan in the direction of the Chair. It was presumed that if any attack was to be brought from the replicators to us, it would be brought by a fleet closer to us." Answered Freyr.

"So it seems that the replicators are sending their reserve fleet into battle, whilst keeping all the other fleets in defensive positions." Said Minos.

"Yes. The fleet that is heading for us is large. They outnumber us with at least four to one, and more are joining. We must prepare for battle." Said Freyr.

"I can help." Said Minos. "I have seen how the Asgard pilot ships. Perfect for scientific research, but disastrous for warfare."

"What would you suggest?" asked Thor.

"Let me pilot one of the ships, and others that have experience in flying warships too."

"I can fly one of those." Said O'Neill.

"I am also able to fly a warship." Said Teal'c.

"Daniel and I could fly a warship too, I think." Said Carter

"Very well," said Freyr. "You shall each be transported to one O'Neill class vessel. There you will lie down in a control pod, from which you can control the ship with your mind. You can just visualize the ships movements and the ship will follow."

"Good luck." Said Minos as SG-1 were transported to the other ships.

* * *

"We must prepare." Said Thor.

"Can I control the ship from here?" asked Minos.

"How do you want to control the ship with your mind from bridge?" asked Thor.

"By sitting down and telling the ship what to do." Said Minos.

"I you are able to do that, than yes." Said Thor.

"Thanks." Said Minos as he sat down where he was standing, and closed his eyes.

"I have now full control over the ship." Said a metallic voice from the speakers, which sounded a lot like Minos.

"The replicators will be in this system in one minute." A message from Freyr came in.

"Everybody prepare!" said Minos as he waited for the replicators to arrive.

* * *

Then the replicators arrived. A large fleet of hideous replicator ships dropped out of hyperspace in front of the Asgard fleet. They outnumbered the Asgard fleet 5 to 1, as they had been joined by other replicator ships on the way.

In the exact middle of the fleet was a huge replicator mother ship. It was far bigger than the other ships, and could easily house a hundred O'Neill class ships with room to spare. There were also replicator ships that rivalled the O'Neill class ships in size, and there were slightly smaller ships that were about the size of the Beliskirnir-class vessels.

"CHARGE!" Minos screamed, and every ship of the Asgard fleet got the message.

The Mjollnir shot forward towards the Replicator ships.

"Let's learn them why you'd never mess with the Asgard or the Ancients." Minos said.

* * *

The Mjollnir aimed right for the hole between two larger replicator ships and started firing the Asgard beam weapons. Large beams of white, superheated energy impacted the shields of both replicator ships. They returned fire with their board-cannons, but they missed. The momentum and speed of the Mjollnir helped the ship evade the weapons fire.

When the Mjollnir had passed both Replicator ships she had severely weakened the shields of both. But instead of turning around she kept going, being controlled by Minos from the bridge. The Mjollnir flew over one of the smaller replicator ships. She fired all her beam weapons, and the replicator ship exploded.

"One down, one hundred and thirty to go." Minos said.

When the Mjollnir had plunged forward, disappearing between the replicator ships, the rest of the Asgard fleet hadn't been sitting still either. Three O'Neill class vessels charged the replicator fleet head-on, followed by five Bilskirnir-class ships. The advance beam weapons of the O'Neill class vessels took care of one of the larger ships, while the less advanced cannons of the Bilskirnirs took care of two smaller ships.

Then the replicators, who had been surprised by the furious initial attack of the Asgard, regained their senses. The mother ship moved forward, to the bulk of the Asgard fleet.

* * *

Freyr's O'Neill class ship was waiting there, together with the rest of the Asgard fleet. Inspired by the rage the Humans and Minos showed in their piloting, Freyr's ship shot forward, launching all his beam weapons. He was immediately followed by the rest of the fleet that was under his command.

The large O'Neill class vessels were impacted by the hundreds of board cannons the replicator mothership housed. Their shields held, but the orders were given to disperse around the mothership and to evade their cannons.

* * *

The Mjollnir had, of course, continued her charge into the replicator ranks. Three more smaller ships had fallen to her advanced beaming weapons, while two larger ships had sustained heavy damage. All that caused with minimal damage to the Mjollnir itself, thanks to Minos's piloting skills and his unorthodox methods.

A brave captain of an Asgard cruiser had followed the Mjollnir in her charge, and together with several other cruisers and Bilskirnirs they were destroying the larger ships that were heavily damaged by the Mjollnir.

But the replicators started fighting back. Five larger ships surrounded the cruisers and Bilskirnirs that had followed the Mjollnir. The weapons flared on both sides, but the Asgard could not match the superior firepower of the replicator ships. Just when they were about to be destroyed, the Mjollnir appeared out of nowhere.

She flew almost against the larger replicator ships, but she missed them just by a few metres. Beam weapons flared from the Mjollnir, causing enormous damage to two replicator ships. A sustained burst from the Bilskirnirs finished the job, and within seconds both replicator ships were burning balls of flame.

The explosions that were caused by the replicator ships damaged the other replicator ships too. Their shield caught the bulk of the explosive force, and the Asgard cruisers kept firing at them to weaken their shields.

The Mjollnir did another fly-by, this time she took out the remaining three replicator ships.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the three human captained ships were doing their very best to evade the blows of the twenty larger Replicator vessels that were chasing them. They just managed to do that, and after a large beam that had only barely missed the shields of O'Neill's ship, all three flew upwards in a perfect looping and they reigned destruction on their attackers. Beam weapons impacted the replicator shields, and the combined force of three O'Neill class ships quickly turned five replicator ships into exploding piles of dust and flames.

All three the ships made a left turn, and returned to do another fly-by on the replicator ships. Their quick fire destroyed another four ships, but the replicators had had enough time to regain their senses and fire back. All three the ships were impacted heavily by the sustained cannon-fire from the Replicator ships, but their shields held.

They used their momentum to keep going forward, instead of doing another flyby on the replicator ships. The replicators did not expect that, and the larger ships held their ground, waiting for the attack that would not come.

Instead, the three human-piloted O'Neills flew forward into the middle of a bunch of smaller replicator ships that had not taken part in the battle yet. Those ships were surprised and they were quickly overpowered by the O'Neills. The sustained bursts of supercharged energy kept impacting the shields of the replicators, and the explosions from the destroyed ships did the rest. Soon there was little left but a field of debris from the twenty replicator ships that had previously been there.

* * *

In the middle of the battlefield, where the replicator mothership had charged the Asgard, things were not going so favourably for the Asgard. Freyr's O'Neill class ship had managed to evade most of the blows from the replicator mothership, and the other O'Neills had sustained little damage either. But the older, less agile Bilskirnir class-ships were not as lucky. Two had already been destroyed, their crew of one being beamed back to the remaining ships.

But the Asgard had managed to do only very small amounts of damage to the mothership. Their continued firing of the beam weapons had had little effect on the shields of the mothership. The giant shield of the juggernaut of a ship were just too powerful for the Asgard to handle. Suddenly, five large replicator vessels appeared in front of Freyr's vessel.

Freyr managed to evade most of their weapons, but a lucky shot from one of the replicator ships had severely damaged his engines. Saved by his momentum, the O'Neill class vessel flew away from the large replicator ships, returning fire and destroying one of them. But no engines meant no possible means to escape the cannons of the mothership. The juggernaut ship fired a lot of cannons at the O'Neill class vessel which was Freyr's flagship, depleting his shields. Another burst of those weapons would mean his end, he realised.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Another action-chapter.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 13 – Asgard vs. Replicator part 2

* * *

"Shit!" Minos exclaimed, and he turned the Mjollnir around violently. Thor fell on the floor, but he caught himself before he was hurt.

"Sorry." Said Minos, as he raced the ship full speed ahead.

Freyr saw the cannons of the Replicator mothership power up, and he knew that it was his end. This O'Neill class flagship could not handle any more damage, his shields were failing, his engines were severely damaged and he was leaking atmosphere. He saw the orange-red burst of energy being fired from the replicator ship.

But suddenly, he felt his ship moving. The Mjollnir had come to Freyr's aid, and had pulled the ship directly out of the line of fire from the replicator ship. Freyr and the other Asgard captains he had picked up underway were beamed aboard the Mjollnir.

"Hold On!" screamed Minos, as he hit one of the smaller Replicator ships full in the side with the Mjollnir, who was unable to brake enough to avoid collision.

The large ship rocked violently forward when it crashed straight through the smaller replicator ship, it shields barely holding. Everyone on board was launched forward, except Minos, who looked like he was glued to the floor.

Most of the Asgard landed relatively unharmed, but two were squashed against the wall violently.

"Shields are down to 5%" said the computer-synthesized voice.

"I'm beaming you out!" screamed Minos.

* * *

All the Asgard were beamed out to one of the waiting transport ships, that kept their distance from the battlefield. They saw from the bridge of the transport ship they were on how the large replicator mothership was powering up weapons, and they saw the four large replicator vessels race towards the Mjollnir, who was left almost defenceless.

Al least they thought. Suddenly, Freyr's ship powered up, and launched itself full speed into the Replicator mothership while simultaneously overloading the hyperdrive. The explosion was powerful enough to severely weaken the motherships shields and to destroy one of the large replicator vessels.

The flash of light from the explosion had given Minos enough time to regain his senses, and he flew upwards with a looping, charging right through the ranks of the attacking replicator ships. The remaining three replicator ships were destroyed by the Asgard beam weapons.

The Asgard ships that were attacking the replicator mothership had now decreased in number to two O'Neill class ships and five Bilskirnirs. There was help coming from two other O'Neill class-ships that were fighting a small group of replicator ships a little to the right on the battlefield. They had apparently destroyed those ships, and they were now racing to damage the mothership of the replicators before it could get its shields back up to full strength.

Minos took off in the Mjollnir, and he flew circles around the replicator mothership, shields powered down, beam weapons continuously firing. Suddenly, two large holes opened in the replicator mothership, and two enormous, red beams shot out. Minos barely managed to avoid both by making a barrel roll and a looping at the same time.

He tried to escape the bolts of energy that the replicator mothership fired at him by making several incredibly sharp turns, both left and right, but to no avail. The mothership kept firing at him. Minos suddenly got an idea, because he made another sharp turn, this time upwards, to where a large replicator ship was firing.

He times his arrival behind the replicator ship exactly with the beam being fired from the replicator mothership. The beam obliterated the large replicator vessel, cutting straight through its shields and hull in a matter of seconds. Minos launched the Mjollnir between two other replicator vessels, and the replicator mothership fired again. These two smaller replicator vessels were obliterated instantly, the explosions only barely avoided by Minos's piloting skills.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the three O'Neill class vessels piloted by Jack, Teal'c and Sam and Daniel were cutting through the smaller replicator vessels like a knife through butter. Jack and Tealç both had enough experience in flying an aircraft to successfully pull off the hardest manoeuvres they could think of, and Sam and Daniel instinctively knew what the other two men were doing, and joined in.

Many replicator vessels had already fallen under the continuous attacks from the various O'Neill class vessels, bringing the numerical advantage of the replicators back to 1:1. The smaller vessels were no problem for the remaining Bilskirnir class ships, the cruisers and the chariots. The larger replicator ships were a bit of a problem, but they were taken care of too, by occasional beams from a passing O'Neill class vessel. But the Replicator Mothership was still a very dangerous threat to the entire Asgard fleet. Its shield may have been weakened by the hyperdrive-overload from Freyrs flagship, but they still were strong enough to hold most attacks.

Minos, in the Mjollnir, was charging across the battlefield like a mad bull and an acrobat, obliterating and destroying every replicator ship he could find with the powerful Asgard beam weapons. He evaded all their cannon blasts so elegant and quick that it looked like the ship was dancing with the replicators, with the shields still powered down.

Only the juggernaut mothership of the replicators was doing lots of damage to the Asgard fleet. Three more Bilskirnir class vessels had fallen, as well as five cruisers. The chariots had better luck in evading both the cannons and the huge beams of the mothership because of their agility.

Minos destroyed the last of the large replicator vessels that were following him, and he flew back to the replicator mothership to render assistance, while he kept firing as much as he could at passing replicator ships.

The three human-piloted O'Neills also finished their last attacker, leaving the remaining replicator ships to the others. They arrived at the mothership at the same time as Minos in the Mjollnir. After several quick bursts of beams from all the O'Neills together, the giant shields of the replicator mothership finally went down.

* * *

"Fire on these coordinates!" Minos yelled, his words reaching all the other ships that attacked the replicator mothership.

Immediately several multi-coloured beams from all the Asgard vessels impacted the target Minos had set. The Motherships hull was thick, extremely thick, and was very hard to penetrate. It took several beams from the O'Neills to break through the first part of the outermost layer.

Minos saw this and realised that it was going to take ages to cut through the whole mothership in this rate. He needed to speed things up. The Mjollnir came to a complete halt, right in front of the coordinates Minos wanted to attack. All the beaming weapons charged up at the same time.

* * *

"That's Impossible!" said Freyr, who had followed the battle from the bridge of the transport ship. "The generators cannot possibly provide enough power to fire all four beaming weapons at the same time!"

But apparently, Minos had succeeded in finding way to do this, because he was almost done charging. The Replicator mothership had apparently known what Minos was planning, because all the fire concentrated itself around the Mjollnir.

Minos was not able to divert energy to the shields, because all the energy, including his own, was going towards charging the beams. He saw the various beams and cannon fire from the mothership come near, but there was nothing he could do!

O'Neill, Teal'c and Jacob must have seen what was happening, because all three simultaneously parked their ship in front of the Mjollnir, to protect it from the attacks. They diverted all their power to their shields and they braced for impact.

Their shields barely held, but before the Replicator mothership could fire again, the Mjollnir fired. All four beams of white, supercharged energy impacted the mothership at the same time. But instead of dissipating after three seconds, the beams continued.

The beams changed colour. First from white to yellow, then orange and then to red. The red beams seemed to have the most effect, because they stayed that way. The beams suddenly began to 'shiver' and multiple bolts of energy were released inside the beam, doing even more damage to the mothership.

* * *

The remaining forces of the Asgard fleet had destroyed all other replicator ships in the area, and they were now heading towards the mothership, where the beams from the Mjollnir continued to burn themselves straight through the mothership, sucking every ounce of its power away to healing itself.

Every capable ship in the Asgard fleet fired all their weapons at the same time on exactly the same location on the mothership, dead in the centre. Multi-coloured beams from the various O'Neill class vessels impacted the hull, just as the smaller beams from the Bilskirnir class vessels. The cruisers and chariots fired all their board cannons towards the spot in the centre of the mothership.

Within a matter of minutes, an enormous hole was drilled straight through the outer hull of the mothership. The Mjollnirs beams kept eating away the interior of the mothership, until they found what they were looking for. A black hole.

* * *

The power requirement for a ship the size of the juggernaut Replicator mothership were astronomical. Not even the most capable power source in the galaxy would have been enough to satisfy its need for power for a prolonged time. So, the replicators had searched for an alternative, a black hole. The only problem with a black hole is that it's extremely dangerous. Once you fall in, you can never get out. The Replicators had to build several key containing mechanisms to lock the black hole into place in the centre of the Mothership.

The beams of the Mjollnir impacted the various mechanisms holding the black hole into place in the mothership. The first row of systems were destroyed, the backup systems were obliterated just as easily and the failsafe mechanisms too. The shield holding the black hole in place began to fade.

* * *

"LEAVE!" screamed Minos, and every other ship in the Entire Asgard fleet left the vicinity of the Mothership. The Human-piloted ships were the last to leave, because they were the closes to the Mjollnir. The Mjollnir kept firing its beams at the mothership. All the replicators in the entire mothership knew their time was near, that they were about to be destroyed by the very power that had rendered them almost invulnerable.

The Beams from the Mjollnir decreased in power slowly, as the Replicator mothership began to rock, move and bend around the black hole to survive its gravity. But suddenly, the Mjollnir let out an enormous blast of energy, coloured blood red. The light was so intense, that everybody on all the bridges of every ship nearby looked away.

The replicators threw themselves straight into the explosion of power, in an futile attempt to stop the wave of energy that would mean their end, but in vain. The wave reached the black hole, the original target Minos had intended to destroy. But instead of being absorbed by the black hole, the energy surrounded it.

Suddenly, in a massive explosion that rivalled the largest supernova, the black hole destroyed itself, taking the replicator mothership with it. Every Asgard vessel fled towards a safe distance from the explosion, the slower ones being pulled by the various O'Neill class vessels.

* * *

When the energy wave from the giant explosion had passed harmlessly over the Asgard fleet, the human-piloted O'Neills were the first ones to race towards the place where the Mjollnir had been. But it was in vain, the Mjollnir was not there anymore, and it could not have been otherwise saved.

Tears started to flow from SG-1, and all the Asgard bowed their heads in despair for the loss of Minos.

But suddenly, a bright blue flash of light appeared in the middle of the bridge of the O'Neill class vessel that housed the most Asgard and now SG-1 too. There was Minos, heavily wounded by the explosion that destroyed the replicator mothership, but very much alive.

"Minos!" everybody on the bridge exclaimed almost simultaneously.

* * *

A/N: Do you like my style of action writing?


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: This chapter is a bridge to more action. I hope you like it!

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 14 – Shocked and a Recovery

* * *

Everybody on the bridge of the Asgard vessel raced forward to check on Minos. He had been severely wounded by the explosion, and he was almost covered in small scars and cuts, with larger ones spread out over his whole body.

"I think an Ancient healing device would come in handy now." He said softly as he fainted.

Thor teleported Minos to one of the medical ships in the fleet.

"Will he be okay?" asked Carter to Thor.

"I do not know. But I know that the Ancients could survive harsh injuries, harsher than humans or Goa'uld can. But I am uncertain if even Minos can survive this."

* * *

"He is going to be okay." Chimed the captain of the Asgard medical ship in a few minutes later.

"Oh thank god." Carter and Daniel sighed.

"There is no god to thank, only Minos's quick reflexes and the Asgard medical technology." Said the captain.

Daniel thought about explaining that it was only a saying from Earth, but he decided not to bore everyone to death.

* * *

"Thor, do we know how it was possible to fire such a continuous beam?" asked Carter.

"No, we do not. The Asgard energy technology is not of a sufficient level to create that much power. I am as stunned by it as you." Thor answered.

"And what caused the explosion?" asked Daniel.

"I am unsure of that too. I did not think a simple hyperdrive explosion could cause such a blast, even from a ship as large as the replicator mothership. I think we must wait for Minos to successfully uncover the riddles around that question."

"Thor." Freyr started. "We must hurry to carry out the plan. I suggest you and the Tauri take one of the O'Neills as your ship, and you transport Minos aboard as soon as possible. Then we must leave immediately for the replicator homeworld."

"The replicators have a homeworld?" asked Daniel

"Yes. That is the planet where we first found the replicators, and where we found the control chair. I do now know how it came here in the Ida galaxy, but it is here. The replicator homeworld is their base. The planet was rich in various minerals such as neutronium and trinium, but the replicators mined all that. There were multiple planets in that solar system once, but they were absorbed by the replicators. All that mass went to producing and replicating replicators. The planet is presumably covered in thousands of miles of replicators, but they are merely dormant."

"Let's hope they stay that way until we can shut them down from the chair." Said O'Neill

"It is highly unlikely that that will happen. It is most likely that you will encounter billions, if not trillions, of replicators in all sizes. That is why we have agreed to let you come on this mission. Your weapons have proved effective in damaging the replicators. You must go there well-armed. The plan is to send you in one of the O'Neill class ships to their planet, and transport you down as soon as we are in range."

"Why not beam us down immediately?" asked Carter.

"Because the replicators have installed an anti-beaming field around the planet. We've found a way to bypass it, but we must be in close range for it to work." Answered Freyr.

"How close is close?" asked O'Neill.

"A hundred miles at most. That means we have to descend into the atmosphere of the planet." Answered Freyr.

"Who will be piloting the ship?" asked O'Neill

"I will." Said Thor. "I have studied Minos's flying style in the battle, and I believe I have been successful in learning why he managed to evade almost every replicator weapon so far."

"Ow and what is that?" asked Minos while he was transported in.

"Minos!" Exclaimed everyone.

* * *

"Thank god you're okay!" said Carter.

"I agree with major Carter. It is very lucky that you are 'OK'" said Thor.

"You are vital for the plan to succeed." Added Freyr.

"I have heard your plan." Said Minos. "But what makes you think you have learned my trick to evade enemy weapon fire?" he asked to Thor.

"I believe it is your agility and your ruthless flying style. You make turns sharper that the internal dampeners can soften, thus throwing around everybody on the ship."

"You're partially right." Said Minos. "You're just forgetting one little thing."

"And what is that?" asked Thor.

"Secret of the cook. You'd have to find out yourself. But let us go to the replicator homeworld." Said Minos.

"We must indeed hurry. The replicators are withdrawing all their troops to their homeworld." Said Freyr, as the Asgard fleet jumped into hyperspace.

* * *

"I'm curious, Minos," started Carter, "why did the replicator mothership gave off such a huge explosion? It nearly destroyed us, if we hadn't withdrawn far enough in time."

"That was because of their power source. Do you know what the most capable power source in the galaxy is?"

"A zpm?" O'Neill suggested.

"Nope. A black hole. The replicator mothership had a black hole as energy source. That's why I started drilling the ship in that exact location. If you manage to destroy all the systems keeping the replicator mothership into place, then the black hole will explode."

"So that caused the massive explosion?" asked O'Neill. "I thought someone overloaded a zpm-thingie."

"No. Overloading a zpm wouldn't have caused such an explosion. The bulk of the force from the explosion was absorbed by the replicator Mothership itself."

"Absorbed by the replicators?" asked Carter.

"Yes. Absorbed. In a final effort to save themselves, they formed a large sphere around the black hole just before it exploded, and they drained as much power as they could. But they were annihilated, luckily, because they couldn't drain enough power in such a short time."

"So it was no trick of the mind that I saw the replicator ship 'collapsing' in on itself? The replicators were actually moving?" asked Carter.

"Yep. They tried to form a sphere around the black hole, I think."

"May I ask how you survived the explosion?" asked Thor.

"I transported away on the last instant." Answered Minos.

"But you did not arrive here until later. How is that possible? Asgard transporters do not experience any time between the transportation from one point to another." Thor said.

"Let's just say that that only goes for normal conditions, and that the transporter being hit by an large enough explosion is sufficient reason for the transporter to lag a bit." Said Minos.

"Are you going to elaborate that?" asked Thor.

"Nope, I don't wanna bore your head off. But we're almost there." Said Minos.

"How can you tell?" asked Thor. I have not said anything.

"I can sense the chair is close, and I can pretty accurately guess the distance from where we started to the chair. I think we must prepare."

"What would you suggest?" Thor asked.

"As soon as we drop out of hyperspace, reroute all the power available to the shields, sub-light engines and weapons. The fleet forms a wig in front of this ship. Two other O'Neill-class ships go in front, followed by the rest of the O'Neills minus three. This one goes in the middle, just behind the first two O'Neills, and the other two go to the far end of the wig. Bilskirnir-class vessels form the outside of the wig behind the O'Neills, and the cruisers and chariots stay in the middle for suppressive fire and assistance. If any one ship receives too many blows, it switches with one of the ships in the centre. All ships must fire continuously, as much as their energy reserves allow." Minos finished.

"And what about us?" asked O'Neill.

"I'll go prepare myself for battle, you must get your weapons ready, as many as possible, and prepare yourself. Once we can transport to the planet, it will be almost a mile or so to the chair. We cannot transport in closer, because the dampening fields are too strong there." Minos said.

* * *

Minos reached in his pocket, and he grabbed a small lump of, seemingly, sugar.

"Is that all the sugar you're gonna need for this?" asked Daniel.

"It's more than you'd think. This small lump contains the equivalent of ten tonnes of sugar. But since that would be a little too much for me to eat, I made it a little bit smaller."

"Ten tonnes? Is so much sugar really necessary?" asked Carter.

"Yep. It's probably only just enough, considering what we're going to do on the planet. I've even brought Excalibur's twin weapon, Durandal."

"Durandal? Charlemagne's sword Durandal? The legendary weapon, said to be indestructible?" Exclaimed Daniel in surprise.

"Yep, the one and only. I let him borrow it for a while."

"You let Charles the great borrow your sword?"

"Yeah. He was a nice guy, and he promised he'd give it back after his death."

"Wait. You said you haven't been on Earth since the year four hundred or so. Charlemagne lived later." Said Jack.

"How did you know that? I though history wasn't your favourite subject?" asked Daniel, surprised by the fact that Jack knew when Charles the great lived.

"Well, I don't know exactly when Charlemagne lived, but I know he lived later than King Arthur. And you said you buried the gate after you left, so how did you come to Earth?"

"I have visited Earth several, well actually quite a lot of times over the course of history, and I have discovered numerous ways to get to Earth, without using the Stargate."

"Such as?" asked O'Neill.

"Ship would be the first to come to mind, but I didn't use it. For the rest I am not going to answer your question because it would spoil all the fun!" Minos said with a grin.

"Fun?" O'Neill asked.

"Yep." Minos answered. "For the fun of discovering something new by yourself."

"I'd have guessed that the last of the Ancients would be a bit... _different._" said Thor.

"What do you mean different? Different how?" Minos asked.

"Most of the Ancients that we have met as a race, were found to be very serious. An rational, logical race that did not show a natural tendency to 'fun'." Said Thor.

"Like the Vulcans?" said O'Neill.

"Vulcans, sir? I didn't know you were a trekkie." Said Carter.

"Am not. I only know Spock."

"Vulcans?" asked Thor, not knowing what they were.

"The Vulcans are a race from one of the tv-shows on Earth. They are people guided by logic and thought, instead of emotions and impulses. They do not show emotions, though they do have them." Answered Carter.

"Must be a boring race, if they don't have jokes." Said Minos.

"Actually, they were one of the funniest races of the entire show. Purely because of their lack of humour." Said Carter.

"Can't imagine." Said Minos. "But I think you should grab your weapons, we're almost there now."

"Good idea." Said O'Neill as they all got their weapons.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: More action!

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 15 – Ground Battle part 1

* * *

The Asgard fleet dropped out of hyperspace in orbit of the Replicator home planet.

"Reading multiple replicator fleets coming our way!" said Thor.

"How many?" asked Minos.

"Too many. Over five thousand ships alone."

"Damn. We must hurry. Bring us down to the surface."

* * *

As Thor brought his ship through the dense atmosphere of the planet, the rest of the Asgard fleet stood in the formation Minos had thought. Not that it would have much effect with the amount of replicators in this system, and the ones coming.

The Solar system where the replicator homeworld was localised, had once had over eighteen planets, from which five gas planets with moons, and several asteroid belts. The replicators had absorbed all that mass in their own. Only on the outer edges of the solar system was one planet-sized object partially made of rock. It was slowly being absorbed and transformed into new replicator blocks.

Half of that planet, an icy ball of rock and stone nearly ten billion miles from the star away, was already Replicator. It was quite a sight, the surface of the planet being scarred by trillions upon trillions of replicators, spreading out in large patterns.

Most of the replicators in the solar system, however, had positioned themselves around the planet on which the chair was located. A massive ball of replicators had formed there, nearly ten times as big as Earth. The replicators that did not form part of the planet, had made an incredibly large structure around the planet.

The structure itself was sphere-like, but there were several large holes in it. It looked like a huge, circular spider web, only with much thicker threads. There was also a structure around the sun, made of two broad rings around the star. They were, presumably, for energy, though the replicators wouldn't really need that.

While Thor's new ship, from which he did not know the name, descended down into the atmosphere of the planet, the remainder of the Asgard fleet stood in a large wig-like formation. They fired at will at every piece of replicator they could find, which wasn't really hard in this solar system. There were billions of smaller lumps of replicators flying around the solar system. They probably once were comets or smaller asteroids which were absorbed by the replicators.

* * *

The Asgard ship Thor piloted broke through the clouds on the replicator homeworld.

"Holy shit!" O'Neill exclaimed.

"That is amazing!" said Carter

"It is indeed sacred manure we are in, O'Neill. This planet had completely been absorbed by the replicators. There are so many of them, it is nearly overloading my sensors. There is but one object on the entire planet not made of replicators, and that is the chair." Said Thor.

"Can you transport us there?" asked Minos.

"Almost, in twenty seconds."

"Everybody, stand ready to engage in immediate ground combat with countless replicators. We must reach the chair as soon as possible. It will be a sprint of a mile long." Minos said to the team.

"Everybody ready?" he said.

"YES!" the team said.

"Good luck." Thor said, as he transported the team away.

* * *

The team was transported to the planet. The formed a circle, each covering the others backs. They were in a completely flat environment. The ground was made of pure replicators, covered by a layer of dust. There was only a plain flatness of replicators as far as the eye could reach.

"Come on!" Minos said, as he started to make a run for the chair.

The others followed, and Minos slowed his tempo a little bit so everybody could keep up. They travelled nearly one-hundred metres before they saw the first replicator form come to life. It was one of the smaller replicators, used for scouting. It was about the size of a large tarantula. It came almost 'growing' out of the ground, being formed by replicator blocks that awoke from their dormant state.

"Wait. Don't shoot it yet. Keep running!" Minos said as he saw O'Neill and Jacob raise their guns to shoot the newly-created replicator form. "As soon as you damage it, the whole planet is gonna come to life."

The group kept running, but the replicator quickly caught up with them, increasing speed as it walked. It was weird to see the replicator adapting itself for aerodynamics as it walked. The group managed to run another hundred metres before the first replicator scout caught up with them.

"Shoot it!" Minos said.

O'Neill and Jacob both took a shot at the replicator form, and two bullets later the thing was destroyed. The kinetic energy of the bullets was enough to permanently shatter the connections between the blocks, and to damage them.

Though the first replicator form was now dead, it was not long before more started forming. Piles of replicator blocks came from under the ground, in various sizes, to form various replicator forms. Most were the smaller spiders like the first one, others were larger spiders, almost one meter in length and some, further away, were the huge replicator motherbugs, several metres high.

"RUN!" screamed Minos.

* * *

Everybody started running for their lives. They still had twelve-hundred metres to run before they would reach the location of the chair. The only problem was, there was no chair visible.

"It must be underground." Said Minos softly to himself.

* * *

After two hundred metres the first wave of replicators had finally caught up with them. Hundreds of smaller spider-like replicators came charging at the team.

"Fire at will!" O'Neill yelled as he turned around to shoot several of the replicator spiders.

"Keep running!" screamed Minos.

"Fire while running! It won't matter what you hit, it's either replicator or air." Screamed O'Neill.

The team managed to run another one-hundred and fifty metres before the replicator flow became too much. The smallest spiders could be killed with only one shot, but the larger ones needed more than ten bullets to go down permanently.

Minos saw that the team wasn't going to make it. There was still eight-hundred and fifty metres left to cover, and he had to give the team more time. He could make it, but the team couldn't.

"Everybody! Keep running! I'll hold them off!" screamed Minos, as he stopped running.

"But what..." Carter started.

"GO!" he screamed.

* * *

The team turned around, firing at the occasional spider that wasn't interested in Minos at the moment. Minos waited patiently for the Replicators to come, running in a mild jog behind SG-1. The replicators were drawn to him, he made sure of that. And soon, they would meet Durandal and Excalibur.

The first spiders caught up with Minos, and they jumped right at him. He flashed his one of his swords, which were actually twins, and the Replicator form exploded into pieces. He jogged backwards, taking care that no replicator could jump him from behind.

Many smaller spiders lunged at him from the front, and he killed them all with quick slashes from his swords. Then the larger spiders came.

The first one came charging straight to Minos, front legs raised to stab Minos down.

"Wrong choice, buddy." Said Minos, as he dismembered both legs with quick flashes from his swords.

The replicator hissed in anger, and charged forward with the intention of 'biting' Minos.

Minos had seen the attack coming, and he stabbed both of his swords forward, straight through the 'face' of the replicator. The replicator exploded into a large frenzy of flying blocks that shot the two charging smaller spider straight out of their jump. Minos swung both of his swords, and the smaller replicators fell apart.

* * *

Meanwhile the team had almost covered three-hundred metres, and they were now being assaulted by another army of replicators that had circled around Minos.

"Minos!" screamed Daniel.

Minos turned around mid-swing, decapitating two more larger spiders, and saw that the team was in trouble. One of those mammoth replicator mother-bugs had almost reached them. Bullets did not really do any damage to it, they only angered it more.

Minos knew that he had to do something about that. He charged forward, both swords swinging wildly around him, killing any replicators that came into his path. Ten seconds later he reached the Replicator mother bug.

The bug did not see him coming, nor did she expect that Minos would stab both swords in her as far as his momentum would allow. The Mother-bug let out a terrifying howl-like sound as she went down. Minos jumped from the pile of loose replicator-bricks, and saw the team standing.

* * *

"RUN!" he yelled.

The team immediately started to run to the location of the chair, and Minos joined them, covering their backs. He instinctively lashed out behind his back with one of the swords, cutting down one of the smaller replicator spiders that came a little too close. The death of a mother-bug had apparently made an impression on the replicators, because they mostly kept their distance.

Daniel screamed "Guys! Look in front of us!"

Minos turned around and saw what was there. Two-hundred metres in front of him, where the location of the chair was supposed to be, where about five replicator mother bugs, surrounded by thousands of larger spiders and millions of smaller ones.

"Fire at will!" Minos screamed.

The continuous firing slowed their progress forwards, but the streams of bullets from the machine guns ate away all the smaller replicators, and damaged the large ones. Minos ran to the front of the team when they almost reached the barricade of Mother-bugs. He charged forwards.

Minos's swords seem to hack and slash everywhere, being everywhere at the same time and changing direction halfway through blows. He took out a hundred of the larger spiders before he reached the first mother-bug.

Minos charged head first to the Mother-bug, but he only barely managed to avoid the sharp spike that shot out of it, aimed right for his head. He swung Excalibur around to cut the spike off, and it worked. With Durandal he hacked straight into the face of the mother bug. It screamed out in anger, because it couldn't feel pain, and stabbed at Minos again with another spike. He dodged this one too, and he swung both swords around to stab the mother-bug into the face again.

* * *

This seemed to do the trick, because the mother-bug vaporized into a pile of loose replicator-bricks. Minos saw that now left and right of him were mother-bugs, while SG-1 kept firing at the everlasting armies of smaller bugs.

He mused that if this trick worked, the replicators were exceptionally stupid. He jumped up, right between both replicator mother-bugs. As he'd expected, both shot out the large 'spike' that had surprised him earlier.

But this time, instead of stabbing each other with it like he had hoped, the Mother-bugs spikes seemed to stick to the other. Two bridges of spikes were formed, and immediately four more spikes came charging out of the backs of the mother-bugs. Minos quickly saw what was happening, and he couldn't handle one mutated-super-mother-bug made of replicators.

He quickly cut the connecting spikes between the mother-bugs. They kept shooting spikes at Minos, and he kept dodging them and severing the connections between the mother-bugs. Though he kept severing them, the mother bugs did not seem harmed by the continuous loss of limbs. Minos had to do something.

* * *

He quickly found the answer in focussing on one of the mother bugs. The other would try to charge him, but he could evade their blows for a while. He jumped on the back of the replicator mother bug, and he slashed and hacked away pieces of replicators as fast as he could. With a series of quick slashes, the mother-bug was down. The other mother-bug went down just as fast.

Minos looked up to see how much he had to do. There were still five mother-bugs around the chair, forming a tight barricade. On his other side, he kept hearing gunfire, and he saw SG-1 standing in a complete circle firing everything they'd got at the oncoming charge of replicators. But Minos looked further, and he saw that there was no stopping. Massive armies of Replicators were being awakened, flooding the plains around them with replicators. Large mother bugs, the tanks of their armies, were surrounded by hundreds of large spiders, which in turn almost walked on a carpet of smaller spiders. There was no stopping this army.

Minos heard a strange sound, and he looked around. The five remaining mother-bugs had fused together with each other and several thousands of other spiders to form a gargantuan super-bug. It towered over one-hundred metres tall.

"Fuck" was all that Minos managed to say at that time.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: School starts today (yeah, on a wednesday, I know), so the next few update times may become a little bit erratic. Instead of 9 am it'll probably be 4 pm (gmt +2), and writing the chapters will definitely slow down. a lot. Lucky for you I still have some chapters in storage.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 16 – Ground Battle part 2

* * *

The gigantic mother-bug that was now threatening to destroy Minos and SG-1 was a hideous creature. Several 'limbs' of all kinds stuck out from everywhere, and it looked like someone had created a mutated giant superbug.

"RUN!" screamed Minos when he saw that the mother bug was heading straight for him. SG-1 and Minos sprinted away from the mother bug as fast as they could, killing all the other spiderlike replicators in their path. But they weren't fast enough. The giant replicator mother-bug was faster than all of them.

"KEEP RUNNING!" Minos screamed.

"YOU'RE COMING WITH US!" O'Neill screamed back. "YOU CAN'T HANDLE IT ALONE!"

Minos ignored O'Neill and he stood still, waiting for the Mother-bug to come. The mother bug almost reached Minos, and she stood still, surprised by the courage, or maybe stupidity, of her enemy. She shot out several large spikes, each the diameter of one of the smaller scout-bugs.

Minos's swords flashed, cut and hacked away through every replicator spike he could find. Dozens were shot at him, and he barely managed to evade them al. Suddenly a large burst of spikes came, one hundred in one time.

* * *

Minos had to twist himself in a really strange way in midair to evade all the blows. Excalibur and Durandal flashed, but they weren't fast enough. He couldn't cut all spikes so fast, and they kept coming! Minos thought it would be his end, but suddenly he was surprised by the sound of bullets flying his way!

SG-1 stood their ground and O'Neill and Teal'c were now firing at the mother-bug that was shooting Minos with spikes. The Mother-bug turned her attention towards the two figures that were shooting bullets at her. Though she was gigantic, the bullets still managed to cut away some replicators that formed the bug.

She shot spikes at SG-1, but she missed because they ducked away. In the meanwhile, Minos had cut himself free from all the spikes that were surrounding him, and he was no charging right into the mother bug. Swords flashing, hacking away as fast as he could manage, Minos dove straight into the mother bug. He was absorbed.

The replicators that formed the mother bug had suddenly retreated to form a large hole, large enough for Minos. Minos stumbled in that hole, driven by his momentum. He caught himself with a quick turn, and started swinging both swords above his head. He was now inside the mother-bug.

"Oh Fuck." Minos said, as his eyes adapted to the light and he finally saw what was around him. He was surrounded by replicators. Dormant ones beneath his feet, and awakened ones above him. He swung his swords to cut off the replicators that advanced on him. He had to turn so quickly, that he almost became dizzy.

* * *

"MINOS!" O'Neill screamed as he saw how the Ancient boy was absorbed by the Replicator Mother-bug. He knew that there was little he could do but fire as hard as he could at the mother-bug. He did exactly that, but with little effect. The gargantuan mother-bug was so big that bullets did not really do any harm. He needed something powerful. Perhaps some C4?

But as O'Neill reached for his C4, he saw a bright, yellow-white flash coming from above. He looked up, and saw an energy bolt coming from the sky, aimed straight at the mother-bug. The energy-bolt itself did little damage, but the impact of it did enough. The upper half of the Mother-bug was almost completely shot away. Another shot would definitely kill the bastard, but it would also probably kill Minos.

* * *

Minos was just busy cutting one of the groups of replicator bricks that had advanced a little too far for his liking, when suddenly a massive tremor occurred. The replicators that were assaulting him stopped, and he saw his opportunity. Minos slashed away as hard as he could into one direction. He followed it up with a large barrage of slashes that cut an opening just large enough for him to jump for.

* * *

O'Neill watched in terror as he saw a second bolt of energy coming straight for the mother-bug. Minos was still in there, and he wasn't going to survive this. He closed his eyes and prayed for the Ancient to live.

* * *

Minos was mid-jump, and half outside the Replicator when he saw it. A massive energy bolt, which looked like it was Asgard, came from above. Minos estimated that he had about one second before the thing would hit, and he jumped as far as he could to stand clear from the replicator.

* * *

O'Neill felt the ground tremor and he heard the impact the energy blast had created. He prayed that Minos had somehow found a way to survive the blast, and when he opened his eyes his jaw almost fell to the floor in astonishment.

Minos had found a way to escape. The kid was somehow flying straight towards him. The blast had pushed Minos away further and harder than he had expected, and he was now flying straight towards SG-1. He could land safely, even with this speed, but he'd probably snap an ankle or something.

He turned himself to minimize the damage from his fall, and he braced for impact. But instead of the hard, replicator-made ground, he felt four strong hands grab him at the same time. O'Neill and Teal'c had caught the kid out of mid-air!

"Thanks." Minos managed to stumble as the two men put him down. All of them suddenly looked up as they saw a huge barrage of bright energy blasts coming. They soon realised that they weren't aimed at them, but at the advancing replicator armies. Billions of scout spiders and larger spiders fell, and before long hundreds of mother-bugs had fallen too.

* * *

"Come on! We have to hurry!" screamed Minos above the roars of the blasts and the replicators.

The team ran as quickly as they could to the exact location of the chair. But when they arrived there, after they'd cut a way through several hundreds of replicators, they saw nothing. Only a flat, rocky, surface.

"The chair is here." Said Minos as he saw the rest of the team was in terror because there was no chair. "It's directly underneath us."

"What are we going to do?" asked Daniel, who looked tired from all the fighting.

"We go downwards. Everybody stand in a half circle behind me. I'm going to kill the cloak that we're standing on, and there's a large slide directly underneath, going in circles."

"A slide? Seriously? Here?" O'Neill said.

"Just stand in a circle. A bit more to the right, Teal'c. You too, Jack. Everybody ready?" Minos asked.

"Probably." O'Neill said.

"OK let's go." Minos said as he raised his arms and suddenly the ground seemed to disappear beneath their feet.

* * *

The team fell onto a large slide that went steeply downwards as far as they could see. It was almost a metre wide, and it curved downwards in large circles.

When they'd overcome the initial surprise of the fall, the team had noticed Minos's laughter. He was in front of everyone, and he laid calmly down on his back, letting the gravity do all the work. His laughter was apparently a bit contagious, because not soon everybody else was sliding downwards with a large grin.

"How far is it yet?" asked Carter after a few minutes of sliding. "My butt's starting to hurt and I'm kinda dizzy."

"Only a few more corners to the first stop." Minos said. He was right, because after only a hundred metres of sliding, they came onto a large platform. In the middle of that platform was a hole, and to the edges of the platform lay several large mats.

"We need to grab one of these mats, quicly!" said Minos. "The replicators are coming."

Everybody grabbed a mat, and they all followed Minos when he jumped into the large hole in the centre of the floor.

"This is way better!" yelled Carter as the group slid downwards in slightly larger spirals this time.

"These mats are a blessing!" yelled Daniel. "But how far is it until we reach the chair."

"Oh, only several miles downwards. I guess we reach it in about ten minutes. But I can make that nine if we all cling together." Said Minos.

"Nope, I'm fine." Said O'Neill, who was enjoying the ride though he was slightly dizzy.

And indeed, after ten minutes of sliding, the team came to a large platform. In the middle of the platform stood a chair. An Ancient control chair, blue energy pulsating at the rate of an heartbeat. But there was no heartbeat.

* * *

The group reached the chair, and they were shocked. In the chair was Minos!

"What the...!" O'Neill yelled.

"That's impossible." Minos said.

The Minos in the chair opened his eyes.

"He's a replicator!" said Minos. "A highly evolved replicator. Nanobots instead of bricks."

"You are correct." Said the Replicator in a metallic voice that sounded an awkward lot like Minos's own. "Now you will die." The Replicator said.

* * *

The replicator charged forward with extreme speed, grabbing O'Neill and Teal'c and swinging them against the wall. Minos barely managed to draw his own sword before the Replicator version of himself could charge him.

The replicator's arms became metallic in appearance, and they formed swords exactly like Excalibur and Durandal. Minos and the Replicator engaged in a sword fight. Their swords moved too fast for a human eye to see, and they were each other's equal in speed, power and reflexes. Both used tricks and counter-tricks for their opponent to fall into their swords, but neither of it had any effect.

It looked like Replicator-Minos was going to win when a clone of himself, this one made of bricks, appeared. Minos could only barely handle the nanobot-replicator, and he was sure he couldn't handle one more.

But just as the replicator made from bricks charged at Minos, he was destroyed by gunfire. SG-1, who had all been smacked into the walls of the stone chamber they were in, had gathered their senses. O'Neill and Teal'c fired at the Replicators, while Daniel took car of Sam. She was hit the hardest by the replicator, and she was still unconscious on the floor.

* * *

The brick replicator copy of Minos exploded into a small pile of loose bricks, their electronic bonds severed by the kinetic energy of the bullets. The nanobot-replicator that Minos was fighting called another two clones of himself from the replicators that came in through the slide.

Minos had so far held out against the barrage of his opponent, but he was unsure how long he was going to hold. He had to end this, soon.

His rescue came from SG-1, who had turned their attention from the replicators made from bricks to the one made from nanobots. Though their bullets didn't really do much damage, they managed to distract the replicator from Minos long enough.

Minos swung Excalibur around, creating a deep gash across the chest of the replicator. Another swing, this time with Durandal, added a vertical scar. The replicator screamed out in pain as Minos stabbed him numerous times with both Excalibur and Durandal.

With a final scream, Minos cut off the head of his own replicator clone. The clone exploded into a fine dust of miniature particles, now inactive through the damage done.

* * *

The brick replicators, now in the form of bugs and spiders, kept gushing in through the slide. Minos made a huge jump for the chair, and landed smack in the middle. He concentrated deeply, focussing all his power in the simple thought of 'shut down'. It worked. The replicators closest to the chair were the first affected. They stopped mid-movement and they collapsed in on itself.

The shut-down command spread across the planet like a wave. Spiders stopped, bugs stood still, Mother bugs halted mid-step and fell apart. The only problem was that the planet was made of replicators. The planet began to collapse in on itself!

"We must get out!" Minos yelled, as he grabbed Daniel and Sam and laid them down in the middle of a close circle they had formed.

"Thor!" Minos screamed.

Suddenly, the team was on the bridge of the commanding Asgard ship in orbit around the planet where they all looked stunned by the simple thought that they survived.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Sorry if it's a bit weird-sounding.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 17 – The Aftermath

* * *

"Wow. That was surprising." Said O'Neill.

"We actually did it, sir. We did it." Said Carter. "We shut down the replicators."

"That is indeed true." Said Thor. "We owe you all our lives as a race."

"The Asgard indeed owe their lives collectively, as a race, to your courage." Chimed Freyr over the transmission.

"It was certainly the most fun I've had in centuries." Said Minos.

"You'd call that fun?" asked Daniel.

"Yep. I would call that fun." Said Minos.

"You'd call destroying an entire race, even though they were robots, fun?" Daniel asked.

"And saving another race and two whole galaxies in the process? I certainly do." Minos said.

"Two galaxies?" Thor asked. "The Asgard only have colonies in one."

"You're forgetting the Milky Way. That's where the Replicators would have gone if they had absorbed all the mass of the Ida galaxy. Plus we need all the allies we can get for the foreseeable future."

"What's coming at us then? I don't think it could be more threatening than the Replicators." Said O'Neill.

"You're quite wrong. There are things in the universe that are infinitely more threatening that the Replicators. I, for one, are one of them."

"You don't strike me as dangerous as a whole planet of replicators." Said Carter.

"Well we just did destroy a whole planet, and several thousands of replicator ships didn't we? I think that makes us all more dangerous than the Replicators." Said Minos.

"Several thousands?" asked Carter incredulously.

"Indeed." Said Thor. "We detected several thousands of ships in the systems around this one. They had almost reached us. You stopped them precisely on time. A few moments more and they would have reached us. We could not have withstood their attacks for long."

"Yeah, about that. Did my tactic work against the replicator ships?" asked Minos.

"It worked very well. We have not lost a ship, but the replicator attacks were not as numerous or powerful as the fleet we had destroyed."

"What are the Asgard going to do now?" asked Minos.

"I am unsure. Most likely we are going to continue our efforts to find a more permanent solution to the cloning problem that will eradicate us over time. Now we can finally focus most of our power on finding that solution, instead of fighting the replicators." Answered Thor.

"Well, you should have no problems finding raw materials like neutronium and trinium anytime soon. You can just come to this system and beam it aboard."

"That is indeed true. The replicators have conquered countless worlds. Those worlds previously existed for large parts of replicators. With the replicators shut down, it should be no problem to use their materials for other purposes. That would disable them for good." Said Thor.

"By the way, thanks for saving me. If the fleet hadn't shot down the gargantuan replicator bug, I would probably have died in there."

"It was the least we could do to help." Said Thor. "And we were glad to finally be able to do something about the replicators."

* * *

Freyr opened a connection.

"Thor, I believe it would be an honour to hold a celebration on Othala for the final defeat of the replicators. And we would be honoured if our guests would join us."

"A celebration would certainly be in place." Said Thor.

"And we'd love to join you." Said O'Neill.

"Then it is settled. We will bring you to Othala while the preparations are being made." Said Freyr.

"Wait, Freyr, would you mind if I livened up the party a bit?" said Minos.

"Liven it up? What do you mean by that?" asked Freyr.

"Well, I've been to Asgard celebrations a few times, and I believe that fireworks would be a nice addition. Do you happen to have a place where I can light them on Othala? Preferably something high, and far away from any floating structures?"asked Minos.

"I can arrange that. I will send the message now." Said Freyr as he closed the connection.

"When did you go to an Asgard party?" asked O'Neill to Minos.

"A long time ago. And I mean really long." Answered Minos. "I'm unsure about when exactly it was. Somewhere around the date where Goa'uld started being annoying."

"They were not-annoying once?" asked O'Neill incredulously.

"Yeah, I know it's hard to believe, but it's true." Said Minos. "It was about twenty-five thousand years ago or something."

"Twenty-five thousand?" asked Daniel.

"Ancient." Said Minos when he pointed at himself.

"I know, but you still look like a kid, not older than fifteen or so." Said Daniel. "So it's hard to believe you're millennia old."

"That's because you're used to guessing the ages of humans. Look at Thor, for example. You wouldn't say he's over a millennium old, would you?" said Minos.

"Yeah, and the Nox. They were like five-hundred years old." O'Neill said.

"Ah. You've met them too. Did you like them?" said Minos.

"Daniel did, but I thought they were a bit _vague_ and they kept treating us like little kids." Said O'Neill.

"Because in their eyes you are. Most of their kids are your age, if not older." Said Minos.

"But you don't treat us like little kids, while we are still extremely young considering your age." Said Daniel.

"That's because I've been treated as a kid before by most of the other Ancients. Oh and by lots of humans, of course. So I know how it feels." Said Minos.

"But then you still don't talk really vague, like lots of other races do..." said O'Neill.

"Yeah, well, after a few millennia of being treated as a young child, you start behaving like one." Minos said. "And besides, I don't like vagueness too."

"You don't?" asked O'Neill. "Pretty much every race we've met that was more advanced than we have either tried to destroy us or they talked really vague and in riddles."

"There's a way around the talking in riddles part. You just need to now a right response." Said Minos.

"Like?" O'Neill said.

"Well, for example the usual saying of the Nox, which they probably used when you met them. 'The very young do not always do as they are told' can pretty effectively be countered with 'And the very old do not always listen to those who should be listened to'. Essentially they say that the young ones listen, but don't do it and you counter with that the old ones don't listen in the first place."

"I'll use it the next time we meet the Nox." Said O'Neill.

"But you should be careful with using that. If you use it too many times, they'll know I talked to you." Said Minos.

* * *

"Minos, we were wondering how it was possible that you could fire the beams of the Mjollnir for such a prolonged period of time." Asked Thor, changing the subject after a few moments of silence.

"I may have kinda overloaded the naquadria-generators a bit." Said Minos.

"But an overloaded naquadria-generator would have destroyed the Mjollnir almost immediately." Said Thor.

"Not if you successfully increase the buffer capacity enough to drain all the energy of the explosion."

"But that would require immense energy buffers. The Mjollnir could not have possibly housed that much energy at once."

"You're forgetting something. Energy can be stored very densely. Like in a little ball, not larger than a few centimetres in diameter."

"The Asgard do not posses such a technology. Not even close. And even the Ancients did not have such a technology, for as far as we know."

"Who said it was technology? It just requires a bit of a hard hand in controlling it. And two hands would be even better." Said Minos.

"You stored all the energy from the overloading naquadria generators in your hands?" asked O'Neill.

"Not in, but between my hands. It's pretty easy if you know what to do. You could provide unlimited storage for energy, though only for a very limited time."

"We have not ever heard from such a power." Said Thor.

"Because there were very little Ancients that could do it for longer than a minute. But the ones that could, could store very large quantities of energy in a small ball between their hands."

"Did many of those ancients stay on Earth?" asked Daniel.

"Not many, but a few of the Ancients that chose to stay on Earth did indeed have that talent. Myrrdin was one of them." Answered Minos.

"So that would explain why several cultures on Earth tell stories about wizards and witches that could shoot bolts of energy with their hands."

"Storing energy could indeed be observed as 'shooting' bolts of energy from ones hands. But they power in those bolts must have been minimal. The more power is stored, the harder it is to control."

"Are there any Ancients left on Earth?" asked Carter.

"I honestly don't know. If they wanted to be found, I would have found them a long time ago. But if they wanted to 'lay low', as you say it, then they could have avoided detection for extremely long periods of time. Even I would have to specifically search for them, and that could take a while."

"But what happened to the ancients that did stay on Earth."

"Many were lost to accidents, mostly in final efforts to save large groups of humans, others ascended and the very few that remained in this level of existence are spread out extremely far throughout the Milky Way, or they went into hiding."

* * *

"How many Ancients remained on Earth?" asked Daniel.

"I'm not sure of the exact number, because when Atlantis left I was only a very young child, but I would guess about a hundred, most of which have ascended by now."

"Ascended like Oma Desala?" asked Daniel.

"Yep. In fact, Oma was one of the Ancients that remained on Earth. She helps humans ascend if they show promise, but not many do. And she lobbies for the cause of humans before the Others."

"Yeah, she helped me ascend too. But I couldn't resist helping." Said Daniel.

"I know. That is why I chose not to ascend. And possibly because I liked it way better here." Said Minos.

"But who are the Others, exactly?" asked O'Neill.

"The Ancients that fled with Atlantis, and later ascended. They are very by-the-book, and they don't know the meaning of the word 'fun'."

"So they're boring?" said O'Neill.

"Yep. They are the definition of boring, almost. And they don't like it when someone helps humans."

"Why not?"

"Because being ruled by a higher power never works well. Take a look at what civilizations that are ruled by gods achieve. How many civilizations under the power of the Goa'uld are more advanced than you?"

"Well, none that I can think of." Answered O'Neill.

"Exactly. The Ancients chose not to interfere, to give the civilizations in the Milky Way an honest chance to develop themselves."

"Even if that means being slaughtered by the Goa'uld?" said Daniel.

"In their book? Yes. But not in my book. I prefer 'nudging' civilizations along the way. Eliminating threats that would destroy them completely. Even eliminating individuals that pose a threat too great for them to handle themselves."

"I am sorry to interrupt your discussion, but we have arrived in the Othala system." Said Thor.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Sorry for the late upload. I had to go to school early.

Reviews are welcome

* * *

Chapter 18 – The Celebration

* * *

"Is the party going to be like the parties in 'the tales of the old'?" asked Minos to Thor, who was walking to them.

"The parties in the 'tales of the old'?" asked Thor. "I am unfamiliar with that term."

"Beer, wine and food everywhere. That's what the mythology suggests." Said Minos.

"I am afraid that he Asgard physiology had changed a lot in the years that passed. We are not able to digest alcohol, and we only eat the necessary supplements in small packages." Said Thor.

"I have tasted them before, but I didn't like them really much." Said Carter. "No offense, though." She quickly added.

"We have counted on you already with the menu. There will be several dishes specifically made for you." Said Thor.

"Do those dishes contain... _valkeiri ... _meat?" said Minos with disgust.

"No, the valkeiri have been extinct on this planet for over a thousand years." Said Thor. "But how did you know they existed?"

"I've been to an Asgard party before, and I couldn't stomach their meat. Throwing up halfway through a wormhole is not a really good idea." Said Minos.

"If you have been to Asgard parties before, why did you ask if there was any alcohol?" asked Thor.

"Because I had hoped they'd become a little less ... _boring _... over the past two-thousand years." Said Minos.

"Asgard parties, boring?" asked Thor in surprise.

"Yeah, they're not my kind of parties. They involve not moving and a lot of talking for a long time. I prefer a lot of laughing and moving. Plus the Asgard could use some alcohol, to loosen up a bit. You always seem so tense."

"You're still too young for alcohol." Carter said without really giving it a thought.

"She said to the Ancient that is well over a million years old." Countered Minos.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Carter muttered.

* * *

"We have arrived at Valhalla," Said Thor, "The grand hall of the Asgard," as the large doors in front of them opened. Behind the doors was a huge hall, at least two hundred metres long and a hundred metres wide, with many tables set in the middle. Around the tables were many strange chairs designed for the Asgard, and at the end of the middle table were a few chairs that looked like they were made for humans.

"Wow. This is..." Daniel searched for the right word.

"Big?" suggested O'Neill.

"I was going to say enormous, but big will do fine." Said Daniel.

"This is the place where Asgard celebrations have taken place for the past millennia." Said Thor. "Have you been here before, Minos?"

"Multiple times. But I usually sat in the 'kids' section."

"The kids-section?" asked Carter.

"Yup. The place where the younger ones sat, always the noisiest place in the entire room. I was almost always the only ancient there, most of the 'kids' there were Nox."

"I take it that most of the 'kids' that sat there were older than most of us?" said Carter.

"The Nox usually reach adulthood by the age of eighteen or so, but most of them stayed in the kids' corner until their fifties. Their aging slows after they reach adulthood. There were a few younger Asgard that tended to sit close to the kids corner too, but most of them just kept an eye on us."

"I take it that that needed to be done to ensure that no food miraculously flew through the air?" asked O'Neill sarcastically.

"Nope, we never had a food fight. But I occasionally pulled some tricks with some things."

"You mean on every occasion." Said Thor.

"Probably, yeah. But it was fun. And I think the room would have collapsed in on itself from all the boringness most of the Ancients showed." Said Minos.

"You mean calmness and peacefulness? Doing everything according to their rules?" said Thor, who was amused by this discussion.

"No, more along the likes of boringness and oldness, with a bit of annoyingness." Said Minos. "That's why I asked if I could make some fireworks."

"As long as you refrain from any jokes or tricks this time, I cannot see why there would be any need for boringness. Talking can be quite interesting, especially if you tell stories like the one about the Forbidden Ones." Said Thor. "But I believe the 'party' starts soon."

"Yeah, we'd better sit down." Said Carter.

* * *

Not soon after SG-1, Minos and Thor took places on the end of the middle table, the rest of the Asgard High Council beamed in.

"I will introduce you to the Asgard High Council." Said Thor. "I presume you know Freyr by now, and we have our leader, Odin. And there are Penegal, Sagar, Freja and Vili."

The council members bowed to the Tauri.

"It is an honour to finally meet the humans that saved our race." Spoke Odin.

The council members sat down on their respective chairs, Odin at the head of the large table, and the rest directly to his right and left. SG-1 and Minos sat next to them, Minos next to Vili with Daniel and Teal'c next to him, and O'Neill and Carter sat next to Thor.

"Now, let the celebration begin." Said Odin, as many dishes were transported on the tables. The rest of the room had filled with other Asgard, transporting directly into their chairs.

* * *

"Hmm. Smells good." Said Minos as he took in the scents of the many dishes in front of him.

"It certainly does." Said Teal'c.

"Please, eat what you want. It has all been prepared for your specific physiology." Said Odin.

Everybody filled their plates with food, and the talks started immediately after.

"Say, Thor, did you kick Loki out of the council?" asked Minos.

"Loki? Loki died several centuries ago." Answered Thor. "His death was quite tragic, even though not everyone agreed with his research."

"He isn't dead." Said Minos.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Thor.

"That he hasn't died yet and is still alive." Answered Minos. "He's close."

"Did you know Loki well that you can sense him?" asked Vili curiously.

"Yes, I did. He always sat near the 'kids' corner with me. He always kept an eye out for mischief, but he didn't hinder it unless it was important. I think he actually didn't mind it when his food was invisible."

"Have you been at an Asgard celebration before, then?" asked Vili, who hadn't realised that Minos was an ancient.

"More than you would guess on the first sight. I was always the only ancient sitting in the 'kids' corner."

"Ancient? My apologies, I did not know."

"It doesn't really matter. I still behave like a kid, though I'm well over a million years old now."

"I always thought the Ancients aged extremely slow, but that they were not immortal." Said Daniel.

"Some were, and some weren't. But since most of them Ascended, almost all the Ancients that are on this plane of existence are immortal."

"And how many are that?" asked O'Neill.

"I know of one, myself. But perhaps someone else went into 'hiding' just like me. I don't know."

* * *

"The ancient alliance of the four great races has indeed lost much of its power over the past ten millennia. With the Gate-builders themselves gone, the Nox and the Furling living secluded on their respective planets, the Asgard were the prime space-faring race of the alliance. And the replicator war was going to destroy us, sooner than one would expect." Said Vili.

"But now the replicators are gone, and the Asgard can rebuild their society." Said Minos.

"That is true. But it will still take an extremely long time before we can finally find a permanent solution for the cellular degradation that has hunted us for so long. Perhaps that time is too long." Said Thor.

"But there is hope for the old alliance. The fifth race is coming." Said Minos.

"The Tauri show indeed very much promise in becoming the fifth race, though they will need a lot of time to become the fifth race." Said Thor.

"Well, we do our best." Said O'Neill.

"That is true, but it needs time. A race cannot become the fifth race in a matter of years, it will take longer." Said Thor.

"So, not in my time, then." Said O'Neill.

"It is indeed unlikely to happen in the coming century." Said Vili.

"Though it may happen sooner than you expected." Said Minos.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Thor.

"I mean that it may happen sooner than the Asgard can foresee. There may be a time when you will need all the help you can get. And I hope that you will forsake arrogance, and turn to a less advanced race to help." Said Minos.

"Are you certain of that?" asked Thor, who was a bit surprised by the news.

"Positive. It will be a lot sooner than you expect. An awful lot."

"Can you elaborate that?" asked Vili curiously.

"Nope." Minos said shortly.

"why not?"

"Because that would spoil all the fun. Plus I want to interfere as little as possible, for the time being."

"You'd call defeating the replicators little?" asked O'Neill.

"Nope, and that's why I'd better stop interfering in business of a galaxy for the time being. Otherwise the Others would have my head."

"I thought that because you achieved those powers on your own, the Others would not interfere or stop you?" asked Daniel.

"That is correct, until a certain extent. I am one of their kind, though I never ascended. But they would break less of their own rules to stop me than to stop a Goa'uld for example. I am an Ancient after all, just like they are."

"So you're essentially limited in what you can do?" asked Carter.

"Yes, but not as limited as an Ascended ancient. I can get away with a lot more than them, because I never ascended in the first place."

"So that's why you didn't ascend." Asked Thor.

"No, I didn't ascend because being ascended is boring. You can't do anything. As soon as you start pulling off pranks, the Others stop you. As soon as you use only the smallest bit of ascended power, the Others are watching you closely. If they don't like only the smallest thing, they'll stop you immediately."

"We know. We've met some of them." Said O'Neill. "Oma Desala for example."

"And I have been Ascended myself, though I was ignored by all the others except Oma." Daniel added

"Oma would be the one most likely to Ascend anyone. She always was one of the kindest Ancients, and the one most compassionate for the fate of others."

"But Oma was also forced by the others, though she mostly ignored the rules."

"She walked a fine line between breaking them and obeying them. But enough of this slightly depressing talk. I believe it is time for fireworks." Said Minos.

"You can use the large tower visible outside the window as a starting point. Do you need anything else?" asked Thor.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do. Do you have any Asgard music?" asked Minos.

"Asgard music? The Asgard are not a race that held music in high value. There hasn't been any music for the past thousands of years." Answered Vili.

"But you must have something music-like in your archives? Anything with a rhythm will do, as long as there are enough variations in the rhythm."

"Perhaps we have something in the archives. They contain every part of our legacy, so why not music?" said Thor.

"Perhaps, though I am uncertain that we have stored the music in the archives too. You can enter them freely, if you know where they are." Said Vili.

"I know where to find them. I'll let you know when the fireworks start. Oh, and if the sound is too hard, you can just talk to me directly. I'll hear it." Said Minos, as he transported himself away in a beam of light that resembled an Asgard transporter.

"I think it is time to open up the roof." Said Thor.

"I will see to it." Said Vili.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Another talking chapter. I'm currently busy writing chapter 24, but homework takes a lot of my writing time.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 19 – An Interesting Debriefing

* * *

The roof of the grand hall opened, exposing the skies over Othala. It was night-time but the many lights of the Asgard city lightened the sky. Suddenly, Minos' voice sounded from everywhere.

"Are you ready?" he said.

"We are." Answered Odin.

Then all of a sudden all the lights in the entire city went dark, except for a few smaller lights here and there. Then, a piece of music started. It started slowly, with low basses and high-pitched voices and it had a steady rhythm.

Minos had taken place on one of the highest towers of the entire Asgard capitol. He was standing on a small, flat rooftop several hundred metres above the ground level. He could see the large hall where most of the Asgard and humans were seated. He waited for a specific moment in the song he had chosen, and then started.

He had chosen one of the oldest songs in the entire Asgard database. He'd loved it a long time ago, when it was still being played by various Asgard musicians. It started as a slow, almost threatening song about Ragnarok, the end of days in the Asgard mythology, but soon it took the listener on an epic journey throughout various stories and legends.

* * *

From inside the grand hall of Valhalla, everyone watched in awe as Minos fired up the first row of fireworks. He followed the exact rhythm of the music, bigger explosions when the music was louder, and smaller, more elegant ones when the music was softer.

For every 'theme' in the song, Minos had another colour. He started off with a normal yellow-like colour, but he switched to white, then to blue, and then to red for the grand finale. Every living being In the Asgard capitol watched in amazement as the Ancient pyromaster unfolded his grand show.

* * *

He hadn't picked this song for nothing. It was one of the few Asgard pieces of music he could remember in its entirety from the start to the end. He knew exactly when the next sound was coming, and what it would sound like. He was concentrating a lot on the fireworks because he had to make sure that the explosions didn't hit anything. The fireworks themselves were easy enough to make once you knew enough tricks, but controlling them was a bit harder.

Near the end of the song, which told about the end of the Asgard in Ragnarok, Minos' fireworks suddenly increased in volume and power. In the grand finale, all the fire concentrated itself on one space, and it formed an almost touchable object. A dragon.

* * *

The dragon, red in colour, moved its fiery wings and flew towards the grand hall of Valhalla. Every Asgard and Human in the room sat in fear of the dragon, unable to move or do a thing at all. The dragon, completely made out of fire, closed in fast on the large hall. But when he had almost reached it, he changed.

The dragon started to swell up, and he suddenly stopped his course straight towards Valhalla. He flew upwards, higher and faster than any Asgard building, until he almost reached ten kilometres and was near impossible to see. Then a huge explosion rocked the skies.

The dragon had exploded in thousands of smaller pieces, each one of them flying very fast away from the explosion. Then all the smaller pieces exploded too, lighting the whole sky above Othala for miles on end. It was like a sun had suddenly decided to appear in the atmosphere of Othala itself.

* * *

Once the lights of the explosion faded, and everyone's eyesight returned to normal, they noticed that the piece of music had ended. Minos had times the explosion of his dragon exactly with the final of the song.

All the lights in the city returned slowly to normal, and Odin closed the roof of Valhalla.

"And, did you like my show?" a voice said from behind the middle table.

Minos appeared from the shadows that still filled parts of the room as the lighting returned to normal.

"It was truly epic." Said Odin.

"I loved it." Said Thor.

"It was amazing." Said Carter.

"Thanks" said Minos as the rest of the Asgard High Council and SG-1 voiced their opinions on how to best describe what they had just seen.

* * *

"I loved the music. I am unfamiliar with that specific piece, I did not know we had such kind of music in our databases." Said Thor.

"Well, it is a really old piece. I first heard it when I was still a young boy. It took me a while to figure out which piece exactly it was, because it had no title. That makes it a little harder to find in a database."

"A piece of music from that magnitude had no name?" asked Daniel.

"Exactly. The creator wouldn't have wanted to spoil his masterpiece by giving it a name."

"Spoil the fun, eh?" said O'Neill.

"No, spoil the best piece of Asgard music ever created."

"How did you create all those explosions and the light effects, especially the one with the dragon?" asked Carter.

"Explosions were created by using catalysts for the fire. And the light effects were just a bonus. But the dragon involved moving those catalysts around a bit."

"So there were no rockets involved?" asked Carter.

"Nope. I've learned that you on Earth use rockets to bring a small explosive charge into the air, but I want to actually control exactly where and when it explodes."

"It was a really good show, though." Said O'Neill.

"Thank you." Said Minos. "But I'm afraid we must go now. General Hammond is being 'assaulted' by several men over the fact that he had an ancient on his base, and he let him go on a very dangerous mission he knows almost nothing about."

"Assaulted?" said Thor in horror.

"Well, the way they're talking to him, assaulted would be the best word to describe it."

"You know that we cannot be back quick enough to be there before those people leave?" asked Daniel to Minos.

"That is where you're a bit wrong, Daniel. I'm fairly sure I can give a small boost to the Asgard hyperdrive."

"How small is that boost?" asked Thor.

"Small enough to not break subspace."

"Then I suggest we leave when the celebration is over, and that will not take long."

"Wow. I didn't know Asgard celebrations were so short." Said O'Neill.

"They are not, but the important parts are almost coming to an end."

"Then we wait a little while."

* * *

The celebrations of the Asgard came to a stop when all the 'food' was eaten, and all the Asgard were done talking. SG-1, Minos and Thor left after they greeted the High Council-members. They transported to the O'Neill class-ship Thor was using now.

"Thor, can you set a course towards Earth. I will boost the speed a little bit once we get into hyperspace."

"Very well."

Thor set a course for Earth and a second later they entered hyperspace.

"Let's give this thing a boost." Said Minos as he sat down in front of the control console Thor was standing behind. "You might feel a little shock."

Minos placed his hands in front of him on the floor of the O'Neill class ship. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.

The hyperspace conduit they were travelling in suddenly turned bright-red. The shock from the sudden acceleration caught O'Neill and Daniel by surprise, while Sam held on to the control console as she caught Thor from falling. Teal'c only needed to step back a bit from the shock.

* * *

"Sorry 'bout that" said Minos. "We'll reach Earth in several seconds."

"Seconds?" Thor exclaimed. "That is impossible! The energy required to bring this ship to such a speed is incredible. Only the ancients were capable of reaching such speeds."

"Well, I ate the sugar, and defeating the replicators didn't drain all the energy reserves. So instead of literally burning it off in a giant explosion of flames, I thought that it would be put to better use here."

"It didn't drain all your energy?" asked O'Neill in amazement.

"Nope. Ten tonnes of sugar was perhaps a little too much..." said Minos.

"Obviously." Said Carter.

"Were there." Said Minos, as he dropped the ship out of hyperspace.

"Can you beam us down directly to the conference room of the SGC?" Minos asked Thor.

"I will. The Asgard will not forget your help in this in a very long time. We are in your debt." Said Thor. "Goodbye."

"Bye Thor." Said everyone.

* * *

General Hammond sat in his office. He didn't like being told what there was wrong with his base, SG-1, his methods and his rules. And especially not by the grey-haired old senator that was now in front of him in his office, senator Kinsey.

"General Hammond, the rule-breaking actions of SG-1 have gone too far this time. We had an Ancient here on Earth, and you just agreed with sending him away on a dangerous mission! That is unacceptable."

"Senator Kinsey, I gave them permission to go on this mission. It was of great urgency, so there was no time to follow the normal routes. Especially not with the NID stalling almost all my requests."

"This will be taken to the president! This is unacceptable!" said Kinsey.

"Hi general, we're back!" Minos said happily while smiling broadly. "Wow who's the red guy?"

"This is Senator Kinsey, Minos." Said Hammond.

"General! Who is this kid and why is he on this US military base?" Kinsey, who had gone red from anger screamed to Hammond.

"Senator Kinsey, " Hammond began on a calm and slow tone, "This is the ancient you've yelled about to me."

"Ancient?" Kinsey stuttered. "You mean the ancient is a _kid_? You actually want me to believe that?"

"Hi, I'm Minos. Nice to meet you." Minos said as he shook the senators hand, who was a bit stunned by the casualness with which Minos acted.

"Senator Kinsey." Kinsey managed to stutter.

"Pleased to meet you. Now if you would be so nice as to leave, the General and I have a lot to discuss. Thank you and goodbye!" Minos said as he pushed Kinsey out of Hammonds office.

* * *

"Minos! It is good to have you back. You arrived sooner than I expected. Did the mission go as desired?"

"Yep. It was a huge success, even better than the Asgard could have hoped. Plus no one got injured, except the Replicators."

"The Replicators? You mean you fought against the replicators with the Asgard?"

"Exactly. The only casualties were on the replicator side, only a few Asgard ships have been destroyed."

"That is really good news. And I could use some of that, after listening to Kinsey's ranting for an hour."

"We came back as fast as we could, general." Said O'Neill, who came walking in the door.

"Colonel! It's great to have you back. I take it that you've been civil with senator Kinsey?"

"Yes sir. He may be a bit angry, but I think he's not permanently damaged. Well, I hope that. Oh no, I don't."

"Colonel, serious please?"

"Sorry, sir. Kinsey's on his way out. He's unharmed." "Yet." O'Neill added softly.

"Oh, general, there is someone who needs to speak with you." Minos said.

"Who?" Hammond asked.

"Thor." Minos said.

Thor beamed in directly into the office of General Hammond.

"Thor. It is always a pleasure to see you again."

"General Hammond, your team and Minos played a vital role in defeating the Replicators permanently. They have saved the Asgard race. We owe you one, as Colonel O'Neill would say it. Multiple ones, in this case."

"I heard that there were no casualties."

"That is correct. Minos here scared us a bit after he had destroyed the replicator mothership, but we healed him."

"That sounds like an interesting debriefing. I'm looking forward to your reports." Hammond said.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: My usb-stick (with fanfics on it) is smashed right through the middle. Luckily for you that I had backups. Setback: 500 words.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 20 - The Bolt

* * *

"And that's how we saved the Asgards asses again." Finished O'Neill. He was recalling the events that happened during their mission with the Asgard for General Hammond.

"So the replicators are defeated permanently?" asked Hammond.

"Well, actually, they are just shut down. They can be reactivated, but that would require an Ancient, or someone with a similar genetic structure to control the chair. The Asgard have put a permanent guarding fleet near the chair, so that shouldn't pose an issue." Answered Carter.

"And did the Asgard tell you what they were going to do next?" asked Hammond.

"We don't know, sir. They haven't told us their actual plans, but they said that they would divert their attention to the cloning problem. But they will have more time for us, now that the replicators are gone." Said Carter.

"They aren't going to be able to solve their cloning problem by themselves." Said Minos.

"What do you mean?" asked Hammond.

"Well, the Asgard are unable to solve the problem of their cloning process by themselves." Said Minos.

"And how exactly do you know that?" asked Hammond.

"The problem lies within the Asgard themselves. Their arrogance somehow affects their bodies. If they are able to put aside their arrogance and their pride and call for help, then they will be able to find a solution."

"How do you know that?" asked Hammond.

"I can see it. But I am unable to tell them. If I tell them, then the problem becomes incurable. They would know what the problem was, and they would try to cure it themselves, while that only worsens the problem. That is why I have not told them." Said Minos

"Wait a minute. Their arrogance and pride affects their bodies? How's that possible?" asked Carter.

"It changes you. The way you think, and act, but it also changes your inner being. In humans it has very little effect, it takes more than a millennium to notice the changes, but all the Asgard are older than that. And because their bodies are more fragile, it 'consumes' them easier. The Ancients had exactly the same problem, but they found a way to bypass it in Ascension."

"Wouldn't you be affected by the problem, since you are an Ancient yourself?" asked Teal'c.

"No. I've deliberately chosen to remain in the 'child'-phase of my life. That way I can ensure to be treated like a child, thus removing most of the arrogance."

"So you're saying that we should treat the Asgard like children?" said O'Neill.

"No. That would only serve to insult them. You must give them time to learn from you, to overcome their fear of asking advice in that matter. And when they do ask, you must be ready for them."

"So you're saying: Be prepared?" asked Daniel.

"Exactly. The Asgard will discover it in time, of that I am sure. They are smart enough to see the problem before it kills them all."

"When will this happen?" asked Hammond.

"Oh, I'm guessing somewhere inside of two decades, five at most." Answered Minos.

"We're dwelling too far off, people. Let's get back to the briefing."

"Well, essentially, the Asgard are in our debt. Seriously in our debt. But it's up to them what they are going to do with it." Said O'Neill.

"So it's a matter of time before we get any news?" asked Hammond.

"Yes, sir." Answered O'Neill.

"Then I know enough. Dismissed people." Said Hammond. "Oh, and Major Carter, Jacob has almost finished his inspection of your anti-armour gun. Maybe you should see him."

"I will do, sir." Carter said. "Are you coming, Minos?"

"Yep. I'll come." Minos said.

* * *

"Hi, dad." Sam said as she walked into her own lab and saw Jacob and Anise standing over one of the new anti-armour guns.

"Hello, Sam. I hadn't expected you to be back so early."

"Well, we could wrap things up really quickly on the mission. It was a huge success and the Asgard are finally freed from the Replicators."

"That's great! But I've been wondering about this gun of yours." Said Jacob.

"What about it?" asked Sam.

"How did you discover it? How did you discover the fatal flaw in the energy-dispersal patterns from the Kull armour?"

"Well, Minos discovered it, under a microscope. He showed me, and he told me he had an idea. I just worked it out."

"And how did you discover it?" asked Jacob, turning his attention to Minos.

"By overloading it under the microscope." Said Minos.

"Overloading? The energy required to do that would be considerable, and it would be very hard to notice under a normal microscope still."

"It wasn't that hard at all. Just needed a touch of energy on a very localized area. The energy required to damage a large area would be enormous, but the energy required to damage a fraction of the armour is way less."

"But still considerable. It 's still a lot more that I would deem safe to look at under a normal microscope."

"Well, it wasn't really hard to do. Just had to make sure that the microscope didn't actually touch parts of the armour."

"Aha. I get it. The anti-armour gun does work as your scientists have explained. It is an effective means in destroying the kull warriors. I will report this to the council when we get back."

"You're not staying?" asked Carter.

"No, I'm sorry. This could be a very important breakthrough in the battles against Anubis." Said Selmak.

"OK, I'll walk with you to the gate."

* * *

Carter left the room with Jacob and Anise. After saying her dad and Anise goodbye before they stepped through the gate, Carter walked back to her lab. She had noticed that Minos wasn't in the gate room with her, so she figured that he would be in her lab still. But when she reached her lab, he wasn't there.

She walked outside, to see where he could have gone, when she heard an icy scream coming from one of the corridors nearby. She ran towards the sound, and after a few quick turns she entered the room the scream, which had now turned into a steady stream of curses, had come from.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed in horror. "Minos, are you okay?"

"Well, given that there's a crossbow bolt sticking right through my arm, I'd say it's not going exceptionally well."

"I'm calling Janet right now!" Carter said as she walked towards the phone and dialled Janet.

A couple of minutes later doctor Frasier and two nurses appeared with a gurney.

"Let me see that." Frasier said quickly as she saw the inch-thick bolt sticking right through Minos' under arm, blood pooling on the floor beneath him.

"Are you dizzy?" Frasier asked.

"No." Minos answered.

"Feeling fuzzy?"

"Nope.

"can you feel your arm?"

"Yes."

"Can you move your arm?"

"Upper arm, yes, lower arm hurts like hell if I try."

"Well, I need to run an X-ray on your arm as quickly as possible. Get him on the gurney and transport him to the infirmary." She said.

"Doc, I can walk just fine."

"You're wounded. I know what happened last time you were injured and you said you could walk, so you're coming on the gurney young man."

"You do know that I'm way older than you?" Minos asked.

"I don't care." Said Frasier, who was a bit taken aback by the comment from Minos.

* * *

Minos was transported into the infirmary quickly, and an X-ray was done on his arm as soon as possible, while a bandage was set around the wound to lessen the bleeding.

"It seems like the bolt is wedged through your bone, straight through the middle. We're gonna need to operate it."

"Nuh-uh." Minos said. "Just pull it out."

"Minos, I definitely need to operate, the bolt is stuck inside your bone. It is going to be tricky to repair the damage."

"Doc, just pull it out."

"I'll schedule a specialized surgeon as soon as I find one. Let's see, who would be specialized in removing objects from inside a bone?" Frasier kept talking, ignoring Minos.

"DOC! Just pull it out, please." Minos said.

"What?" Dr. Frasier managed to say through her surprise at the statement.

"Just pull it out."

"It is not that simple, Minos..." Frasier started.

"Doc, either you pull it out or I do it."

"You can't just 'pull' it out of your arm." Muttered Frasier.

"Three, Two..." Minos started as he put his good hand around the bolt that was lodged into his arm.

"Ok, wait. I'll pull it out. But it is lodged into place. We need to find a way to pull, without damaging the rest of your arm." Frasier said.

"Can't you just pull it out?" Minos said with a sarcastic undertone.

"We need a clamp of some sorts, and a way to spread the force out over the rest of your arm."

"Just put a big pillow against my arm, that'll spread out the force enough."

"No, it wouldn't. The force would most likely break your bone, now that it's already weakened by the bolt." Frasier kept talking.

"Doc. Either you pull it out right now, or I'm doing it."

"What?" Frasier said in surprise at the stern tone in Minos' voice.

"Three. Two." Minos started.

"Wait! At least put the things in place we need when we have it out."

"Doc, that'll take too long."

"Wait!" Frasier exclaimed as she saw Minos reach for the crossbow bolt sticking out of his left arm.

* * *

But she was too late, because he already started to pull. He flinched, but he continued pulling. After several seconds of pulling the bolt out, it hadn't really moved a lot.

"Dammit. Can someone help pulling?" Minos said.

"Oh you can't be serious!" Frasier exclaimed as she came rushing in with a large roll of band aid and several other things.

It took the strength of Carter, Frasier and three nurses to pull the bolt loose. They had secured it with a rope so they could all pull. The bolt shot out with quite some force and speed, but Minos caught it midair.

"How did you do that?" Frasier and Carter said at the same time.

"Do what?" Minos asked.

"Catch that bolt." Carter said

"Pull it out of your arm without so much as flinching." Frasier said

"I have very fast reflexes and I kind of shut down the nerves in my left arm." Minos said. "Now I need sugar to heal it quicker, before I lose more blood. There is a limit on how much blood I can lose, even though I am an Ancient."

"I've already got the sugar. After what you did before you left I thought it would come in handy if I had a small supply of it."

"Perfect." Minos said as Frasier handed him the small lumps of sugar.

Minos ate them, and after waiting for a few seconds he put his wounded arm in front of him, lying over his knee and he put his good hand on it. After several seconds of concentration, he removed his hand. There was no trace of injury on his arm, save for the dried blood that coloured his arm red. He lifted his arm in the air and turned and moved his hand as supple as ever.

"OK, that's done."Minos said. "Now I only need to clean it up."

"Just take a shower." Dr. Frasier said, who was still a bit surprised that the teenage boy in front of her just healed himself in several seconds, even though he was an ancient.

"Will do." Minos said, as he walked away, Carter walking after him.

"That'll never seize to amaze me." Frasier muttered under her breath, as she called for the nurses to clean the blood trail Minos had left behind.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Here is the explanation about why and how the bolt ended up in Minos' arm. Sorry for the late update, had to go to school early...

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 21 – The Return Home

* * *

"What were you actually doing that you ended up with that thing in your arm?" Carter asked Minos as they both walked to the room Minos was in before he got shot.

"Building a crossbow, duh." Minos said as if it were completely normal.

"Was it necessary to build a crossbow in here?" asked Carter.

"No, but I had an crazy idea that might just be crazy enough to actually work." Answered Minos. "If it worked, it would drastically decrease the loading time on a crossbow."

"And how were you going to do that?" Carter asked.

"I was going to automatize the pulling process of the crossbow. By using a small energy generator I could speed up the loading process to around one second or so."

"And what went wrong?"

"Stupid engine overloaded and the arrow shot away with a little more force than intended."

"Aha. I see. What caused the energy overload?"

"The liquid naquadah power source. It's a bit to potent for a simple engine, I guess."

"Yeah, liquid naquadah would be too powerful. But perhaps a normal battery of some kind would be better. I think I have some of them lying around."

"A battery? Like the one Volta invented?" Minos asked.

"Yes, exactly. But how did you know Volta invented the battery?" asked Carter.

"I knew him. He was a nice guy." Minos answered.

"You knew Alessandro Volta?" Carter exclaimed in amazement.

"Yep. He made great pastas too."

"OK. It's still a bit weird, to see you talking about things that happened so long ago."

"Why?"

"Well, because you still look like a kid to me, even though I know you're an ancient. It's a bit weird, so to say."

"I know. I'm used to it."

"You're used to it?"

"Yeah. Most humans see me still as a child, or a very young adult." Minos answered.

"Aha, I see. But I'll get you the batteries now." Carter said, as she searched through the storage closets around the room.

"Ah. Here they are." She said as she found the batteries.

"Let's see if they work." Minos said as he took the batteries and opened the underside of the crossbow.

He got the small vial of liquid naquadah out, and he put the battery inside the opening.

"Hmm. It's a bit too small. Do you have any copper wires?" Minos asked.

"Yes, they're over here." Carter said as she grabbed the pile of copper.

"Thanks." Minos said as Carter handed him the copper wires. Minos made a small form from the copper wires, with the battery in the middle of it. After he had twisted and moulded the copper wires so they formed a small structure around the battery, precisely big enough to fit in the opening where the liquid naquadah had been sitting.

* * *

"Wow. That went fast." Said Sam as she saw Minos bend the copper wires.

"It's a talent." Said Minos. "Let's see if it's working." He said, as he pushed the battery into place and closed the opening in his crossbow.

"Do you have anywhere to shoot?" asked Minos.

"Well, the targeting range would be ok, I guess." Carter answered.

"We'll go there. Where is it?" asked Minos.

"I'll lead the way." Carter said, as she walked out of the room into one of the many corridors of the SGC.

* * *

"Aren't you a bit young to be carrying around a crossbow here?" asked the sergeant in charge of the shooting range.

"Nope." Minos said bluntly. "Not at all. Now can I test it?"

"Uhm. Ok. As long as you fire at the targets." The sergeant said slowly, until he saw Carter coming in behind Minos.

"Ma'am" he greeted.

"It's all-right, sergeant. I'll watch him." Carter said.

"Your plan worked perfectly." Sam whispered as soon as they were out of earshot from the Sergeant. "Though I could have ordered him just as easily."

"But that wouldn't be any fun at all." Said Minos.

"But still. Now let's test the new crossbow." Said Carter.

"I have I'll try to shoot as fast as I can, to see how much this thing can handle." Minos said.

A few seconds later he got a few crossbow bolts out of his pocket, and he put one into the crossbow.

"Can you time me?" asked Minos.

"Ok, sure. I have a stopwatch here." Carter said.

"On three. One. Two. Three." Minos said.

* * *

On three he let the first bolt fly, shooting it dead centre in the target. Without hesitation he placed another bolt on the shooting mechanism of the crossbow, and shot it away. Within seconds, he had shot five bolts into the target, all dead centre.

"Wow. That was fast. Five point eight seconds. And all in the middle. Your aim is really good."

"Thanks. I should really make more of these things. They might come in handy on Avalon."

"I thought there was peace on Avalon?" Carter said.

"That is true, of course, but it can't hurt to have an more effective weapon against the jaffa, now could it."

"No, that's true. But when were you planning on going back to Avalon?" Carter asked.

"This evening, probably, unless there is an important reason for me to stay here."

"ah. Okay."

"I still can contact you, you know, now that we're allies."

"That's good." Carter said, seeming a bit brighter because of that statement.

* * *

That evening, Minos went back to Avalon. After all the goodbyes and thank-you-for-the-helps from everybody, he stepped through the gate. The sun was still shining on Avalon, and Tarin was waiting for him at the gate.

"Greeting, My lord."

"Hi, Tarin. Has anything exciting happened here?" Minos asked, as he and Tarin walked from the gate to the palace.

"It has. There were two small attacks from Anubis's Jaffa. Not the black-clad warriors, but jaffa. They were not really a challenge, but they managed to wound several of my men. They are being treated by the healers now, and luckily no one of them has died."

"Aha. I think I'll make hurry in my plans to raid one of Anubis' strongholds. He is really starting to annoy me now. Do you have any idea where they came from?"

"We have two addresses from his colonies. We have not sent spies yet, for fear of discovery."

"I'll deal with him tomorrow. Let's see what I can rob him of then. But first, tell me anything that happened, exciting or not."

"There has not been any news, apart from the attacks by Anubis' jaffa, my lord. There have been no floods or storms, not even a sandstorm."

"That is good. But I fear that may all change soon. Sooner than I had hoped, initially."

"Are you speaking of the great war to come, my lord?" Tarin asked.

"Yes, I am. We must ensure that our people do not die. Can you send someone to check out the outer bunkers in the mountains? Especially the ones around the storage facilities."

"I will send someone to check them out, as soon as we are in the palace, my lord." Tarin said. "Are you planning on abandoning the city If the great enemies come?"

"I fear that I won't have much choice in that matter. The people must do that, in order to survive."

"My lord, are you not going to protect us?"

"I am afraid that I will be on other missions. I must try to defeat the great enemies, but I trust you can take command over the troops here. I will tell you everything you need to know when the time is there. That time will come soon, a bit too soon for my liking."

"I am surprised at this, my lord. I had always expected you to remain with us."

"I had hoped to do that. But I am unable to, and I need everything I have stolen from the Goa'uld in this war to come."

"Everything, My lord?"

"Everything. I will take measures to deploy everything in time, but I will need to preserve the most for the final stages of the war."

"I will send people to check out the flight tunnels and the bunkers around the storage facilities now, my lord."

"That is good, Tarin. You did well."

"Thank you, my lord."

* * *

"Daniel!" Jack O'Neill yelled. "It's the middle of the night there. You _can't _just go there and ask if you can study in the library. You'll wake the whole town!"

"Jack, I'm just saying that we should really make work from studying their library. It is a treasure trove of history and culture."

"Daniel, I don't care. If it were a treasure trove of Simpsons dvds and hockey games, I still wasn't going in the middle of the _night_!

"OK. You're probably right." Daniel conceded.

"NO! Wait. What?" Jack said.

"I said you're probably right." Daniel repeated

"Who are you and what have you done with Daniel?" Jack asked.

"I'm just saying that this time, once, you're right, Jack." Daniel said.

"wow. One in a row. That's exactly the same as my previous record."

"But I still want to go when it's daytime there."

"Can't you send an archaeology team, Daniel?"

"An archaeology team _is_ coming with us."

"Aww, perfect. More scientists to babysit."

"We'll all sit very still and stay in the library, Jack."

"Hmpf." Jack said.

"Don't do that, Jack. You can still have fun. Just bring a game of some sorts. I'm sure Minos won't mind."

"Did Hammond gave his permission for this mission?"

"As a matter of fact, colonel, I did. When you were away with the Asgard, a request from Daniel reached my desk. And I approved it, because it would be very interesting to uncover most of the mysteries of our own past."

"Thank you, General."

"Colonel O'Neill, you will go to Avalon with the archaeology team tomorrow. The briefing is at eight hundred hours, don't be late."

"I will see to it, General."

"Dismissed." Hammond said as he walked away from doctor Jacksons lab, where he had found O'Neill in the first place.

* * *

"Hi Colonel, hi Daniel." Carter said as she walked into Daniels lab where O'Neill was busy bothering Daniel.

"Hi, Sam." Daniel said. "Can you tell Jack to stop complaining about tomorrows mission?"

"Tomorrows mission?" Carter said questioningly.

"We're going back to Avalon with the 'archaeology team' to study the library." O'Neill answered.

"And I take it that you don't like it, sir?" Carter said.

"Of course not! All old stuff in books and stuff and things and..."

"stuff." Carter finished him.

"Exactly. It's boring." O'Neill said.

"Just bring a game of some sorts. I think Minos wouldn't mind." Carter said.

"Daniel said just that. But I still have to babysit him and the history-geek team."

"Well, sir, I don't think it's that hard. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't leave the library under threats of death, even."

"That's where the hard part begins. It wouldn't look good on my record if I let a whole archaeology team die from dehydration or something. Plus I need them to actually come back to Earth at some point."

"Yeah, ok, that part's a bit tricky, but still. It's not like we have to fight through hundreds of jaffa to protect them."

"Though I think I wouldn't mind some jaffa showing up. As long as there are not too many of them to handle, it'll be ok."

"I don't think Minos would just sit still if there were jaffa attacking his planet, sir."

"Yeah, about Minos. Janet mumbled something about him shooting himself. What was that about?"

"He _accidentally _shot himself with a crossbow, through his arm. Janet rushed in and brought him to the infirmary, but he healed himself there just fine. I don't think Janet likes the fact that he seems to know what is best for him, and that it is nowhere near the things she thinks are best for him."

"He _accidentally _shot himself with a crossbow? How the heck does he get a crossbow inside this base?"

"I don't know, sir. But he managed to speed up the loading time to one second. He shot five bolts in five seconds on the targeting range today."

"Aha. I see. Interesting."

"Really?"

"No."


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Can't write this week. Stupid 200 lines of ancient Greek text that are supposed to be a comedy, but don't read as such. I hope you like this chapter!

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 22 – Preparations

* * *

"Tarin, what is the condition of the shelters, the storage facilities and the underground tunnels?"

"My lord, the scouts have returned just yet with good news. The underground tunnels underneath the city are in perfect condition. The storage facility is still secure and the shelters are deep underground, safe from bombardment. Everything is good."

"That is great news. Now I must take a little bit of revenge on Anubis." Minos said.

"Are you going to contact the Tauri?"

"Yep. I probably will. Let's see if they want to come too."

"Good luck, My lord."

"Thank you."

* * *

Minos left the palace, clad in the usual robes that wouldn't be noticed in the usual jaffa societies. He walked over the market towards the gate, enjoying the scents and sounds of Avalon. He truly felt at home on the desert planet, between the people he trusted and the buildings he had helped build. It had been a long time since Atlantis had left before he had felt as comfortable on a planet as on Avalon.

Now he was going to contact them by using their device, the IDC. It was quite ingenious that they had succeeded in building a nigh impenetrable barrier in front of their gate. He stopped musing in himself as he reached the gate, and dialled it. He typed in the code on the IDC thingie, and he got a confirmation that it was safe to come through.

"Greeting, Minos." Hammond said through the intercom of the gate room as Minos came walking in.

"Hello, General." Minos greeted.

"Would you be slightly interested in raiding one of Anubis' strongholds? Maybe two?" Minos said.

"Uhm, yes. But that mostly depends on what cost. Are there any grave dangers?"

"Well, if there are jaffa guarding the gates I can take them out quickly, but if there are Kull warriors there we might need the new anti-armour gun."

"So you want to test it in a mission?" Hammond asked.

"Yes, but that's not the main reason. I mainly wanted to take revenge on Anubis for attacking Avalon."

"And what would happen with the supplies you steal?" Hammond asked.

"I'd say split them evenly? I reckon there are several Ha'taks in orbit around both planets, so maybe we could rob one of those. Or more, if we're lucky."

"Rob a Ha'tak from Anubis?" Hammond said, a bit amazed.

"Yep. And if we're even luckier I can load it full with all kinds of useful supplies. Weapons, Naquadah, armour, all that kinds of stuff."

"I must contact my superiors with this offer."

"OK. I'll go and ... do ... something. Bye General."

"Goodbye Minos."

* * *

Minos left the conference room that bordered Hammonds office. He walked down the stairs and into the many corridors of the SGC. Normal people would get lost here, but Minos had an perfect sense of direction and he only very rarely got lost somewhere.

He reached Daniels lab a few minutes later.

"Dammit." Daniel talked to himself. "Why can't I figure out what it says! Stupid vase!" Daniel said angrily.

"Need help?" Minos asked.

"Minos. I didn't know you were back."

"I wasn't until a few minutes ago. Hammond is on the phone with his superiors to talk about a new mission I proposed."

"New mission?" Daniel said questioningly.

"If it works we'll rob Anubis of several ha'taks and a lot of other things."

"Sounds interesting. But can you help me with the translation?" Daniel asked.

"Yep. It's Ancient, but a really old dialect. And with really old, I mean seriously old. It says... let me see... Uhm. It says: 'The future doesn't pass. And the past won't overtake the present.' Can that be correct?"

"Well, it does fit the rest of the text. I think it is correct. Thanks for helping out, Minos."

"No problem."

* * *

Minos decided that what Daniel was currently doing was even more boring than walking the halls for no reason. So, he decided to see what Sam was doing. He arrived in Sam's lab minutes later, only to find that it was empty.

"Where's Sam?" Minos said to himself. He decided to go where he guessed Sam was, and he ended up in the room where he had constructed his crossbow yesterday. She was there, sitting half over one of the numerous technical things in the room. He entered the room, and he discovered that she wasn't sitting half over the technical thing. She was sleeping.

"Sam?" Minos said.

"Sam?" He repeated, this time a bit louder, and he poked her into her shoulder.

Only a small 'huuh' sound came and Sam remained fast asleep.

"Ok. Let's go see someone who is awake." Minos thought by himself.

* * *

Minos left the room Sam was sleeping in, and he decided that finding O'Neill would be the next best option. Since he didn't exactly know where O'Neills office was, he decided to go with his gut and just walk towards the gym.

"Hi, O'Neill. What cha doing?" Minos asked as he saw O'Neill standing in the doorway to the gym.

"Hey, Minos. I'm watching Teal'c fighting against the new recruits. I didn't know you were back."

"I was bored, so I decided that I could just as well take a little bit revenge on Anubis. And since fun is better if you're with more, I came here to see if you wanted to join in."

"Did you talk to Hammond about this?"

"Yep. He was calling with his superiors when I left. I hope you can come."

"Well, that depends on their decision. What would be in it for us if we won?"

"A ha'tak, and if we're lucky a shitload of other supplies."

"Shitload? I didn't know they had that word on Avalon too."

"They don't. But I've been to Earth often enough to know a little bit of the slang you use."

"How often?"

"Several times over the last century?" Minos suggested with a grin.

"How'd you come here? We didn't discover the gate until a few years ago."

"There are other ways to come where you want to go."

"Which are those?"

"You'd have to find out for yourself. But I'll give you a hint. It's old. Older than you, but not older than me."

"Aww, come on. That is almost everything!"

"It's even older than Selmak"

"And that would be how many years exactly?"

"Just over two-thousand. But don't tell her you got that from me. She'd kill me if she found out you know how old she is."

"Ok, that's finally helping me a bit. Are you gonna give more hints?"

"Nope. Otherwise I'll spoil all the fun."

"aww, come on."

"No. By the way, if you've lost Carter, she's sleeping somewhere in one of the storage rooms."

"What? Carter and sleeping?"

"I'm guessing she worked through the night. She fell asleep on whatever she was working on."

"Dammit! I ordered her to go to bed last night! I'll go and check up on her."

"Bye, Colonel." Minos said as he kept watching Teal'c teaching the new recruits.

* * *

Minos was interested by the fighting style and moves Teal'c taught the new recruits. It was a style which formed a bit of a cross-over between Earth fighting styles and Jaffa moves. Teal'c moved very fast for a man his size, and Minos could clearly see the effects of the hard Jaffa training. The new recruits were no match for Teal'c in a real fight, but it wasn't in his intentions to hurt them. He merely wanted to teach them what they did wrong.

After a few minutes of watching, Minos grew bored and he decided to see if O'Neill was screaming at Carter for ignoring his orders and sleeping during work-time. He arrived at Carter's lab, where he figured she would be.

"Carter, when I say you must go to sleep, I mean as soon as possible, not ten hours later, ok?" O'Neill yelled to Carter after he had awakened her from her sleep on the cushion of a block note.

"Sorry sir. It won't happen again." Carter said hastily.

"Carter, it's not that you don't work harder than everyone else, but if you're supposed to be awake but you are actually sleeping, who are we gonna call if something doesn't work?"

"A technician?" Minos answered O'Neills question.

"Minos! Hi. I didn't know you were back already." Carter said. "How long have you been back?"

"Since around you started sleeping on the block note. That would be half an hour now I think."

"What brings you here?" Carter asked, steering the discussion away from her 'sleeping-during-work'-sermon from O'Neill.

"I was bored, so I asked Hammond if it was ok if you joined me in taking a little bit of revenge on Anubis. Hammond was talking to his superiors when I left his office, and I hope he's finished now."

"Taking revenge on Anubis does sound interesting. What did you have in mind?" Carter asked.

"I know where two of his strongholds are. I know one of them, because I have been there before. There have always been Goa'uld shipyards there, so my guess is that they are still there. And where shipyards are, there are Ha'taks to protect them. I will explain more when you get permission to go."

"I hope they give it. But knowing them, it could take a while." Carter said.

"Make that two whiles." O'Neill added. "People in Washington don't tend to be overly quick with those things, especially not with the NID stalling everything as much as possible for Hammond."

"That old and angry guy that was assaulting Hammond when we transported in from Thor's ship, was he from the NID?"

"Yes, Senator Kinsey is from the NID. He's a stupid asshole. He tried to frame us several times, and he has been a gigantic pain in the ass since we started here." O'Neill said.

"As much as I agree with you, Colonel O'Neill, would you please mind to soften your language a bit." Hammond interrupted.

"General! Any good news about the mission?" O'Neill said.

"Well, not as much good news as I had hoped, but you've certainly sparked their interest, Minos, by saying that there might be a ha'tak in this mission."

"What do you mean by that?" Minos asked.

* * *

"Well, the message I was sending was being delayed a lot by several unknown people," Hammond paused for what he was implying to clear up, "but when I mentioned that we could get a Goa'uld Ha'tak from Anubis, then everything sped up immediately. I guess the NID still has some reasonable people working for them, though they seem to be spread out thin."

"And what are they going to do? Are they gonna give permission or not?" Minos asked.

"I'm not sure if they will give permission anytime soon. But I am sure that they will want to speak with you in person, Minos, about the mission. They'll most likely question you about what you know of Goa'uld resources. They said that they might have a person close by, and that he could get here soon."

"Would that person happen to be Woolsey?" O'Neill asked.

"My guess is that it is him." Hammond said.

"Who's Woolsey?" Minos asked.

"Mister Woolsey is the puppet from the NID. He's a bit strange, but at least he's honest about most things. That's more than could be said for that ass Kinsey." O'Neill said.

Hammond shot a fake glare at O'Neill to watch his language, but O'Neill pretended he didn't notice it. "Now, Minos, mister Woolsey could be here between ten minutes and an hour. You might want to prepare yourself for an interview with him. He's fair, but he does everything by the book. You could impress him by getting your story straight now. Think of what you want to say and how you could say it best."

"I'll try." Minos said.


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: Yay! I finally got my FCE-test results back. Pass with 82/100.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 23 – The Interview

* * *

"Greetings. My name is Richard Woolsey. I am sent by the NID to interview you about the mission you suggested." Said Woolsey as he entered the room.

"I understand." Minos said.

"First I'd like to start with who you are. Can you tell me something about yourself?" Woolsey asked.

"I am Minos. I am an Ancient, as you may or may not know. I rule over one planet, Avalon, and there is a treaty between our two planets."

"Ok. May I ask how old you are?" Woolsey asked.

"You may certainly ask, but I don't you if you'll like my answer. I am waaay older than I look."

"I'm guessing that you are not planning on telling me exactly how old you are." Woolsey said.

"You're right on that one. I have told no one in the past ten millennia exactly how old I am." Minos said.

"Let's move on. I'd like to know how you reign over your planet, Avalon."

"If you don't mind me asking, what does this have to do with the mission?" Minos asked.

"It is merely a guide to be able to comprehend what kind of person you are." Woolsey answered.

"Aha, ok. Well, I rule over my planet in what you would call a monarchy, but I am as Signor Machiavelli called it, a 'ruler by love'. I don't use violence as a weapon or threat, I use it only for protection from outside attacks. If there is a problem on Avalon, I am always the one to offer assistance and help."

"Do you know Machiavelli?" Woolsey asked.

"Yes, I did know him. But I didn't like him, he was crazy. I've been on Earth more times than you know, though most of them were quite a while ago."

"I understand. What would you do if Avalon came under attack from an outside force?" Woolsey asked.

"Well, that depends on the attack. If the attack consists of ground-troops that come through the Stargate, then I steal their armour, weapons and other supplies they have and then I send them back. And if they're really annoying I send them back naked. Unless they murdered several of my people, then they die." Minos said calmly.

"And what do you do if they come by ship?"

"If it is only one ship I hijack it and beam every jaffa down and they get send through the Stargate. And I keep their weapons, armour and supplies. And the ship, of course."

"So you posses a fleet of ships?" Woolsey asked.

"Yes, and no. I do have some ships in storage on Avalon, and no I am not going to use them." Minos said.

"Why not?" Woolsey asked.

"I am saving and preparing them for later use. Yes, I can tell what is about to come, until a certain degree. And yes, I will need all those ships, as many as I can get. That is partially why I wanted to go on this mission." Minos said, shifting the discussion back towards the mission.

"Yes, I've heard that you had promised that there were ships involved."

"Promised, no. Highly probable? Yes. It is my main route of escape. And since I can only pilot one ship at a time, I'll need more people if I'm going to steal more ships.

"I see. Can you tell me anything about the planet those ships are on? Is it heavily guarded and are there any minerals abundant in the system?" Woolsey asked.

"Certainly. The planet is called Pe'klo. It has been under control of Anubis since quite some time. It was one of the first planets he conquered. The planet itself is rich in minerals such as naquadah and neutronium. It houses a Goa'uld shipyard, and there is a small fleet in orbit to defend the planet from attackers by ship. I plan to steal that fleet, and all the possible supplies we can get from down on the planet."

"Where is the planet located?" Woolsey asked.

"I don't know how to tell you, because I don't know how your system works. It is located in the inner rim of Anubis' territory."

"Is there any danger from other fleets and armies?" Woolsey asked.

"Not really. The planet is far enough away to give us at least a few hours before the rest of Anubis' fleet can intercept, but there is an army of Jaffa and probably Kull warriors. I can deal with the jaffa easily and with the new anti-armour gun the Kull warriors shouldn't pose much of a problem too."

"So you need the anti-armour gun for the mission to succeed?" Woolsey said, trying to explore a way to get more out of this deal.

"I don't actually need the gun for the mission to succeed, but it would be a extremely helpful asset. I can defeat Kull warriors without it, but it'd go way faster if I had the gun."

"Aha. I understand. Would there be any chance that Anubis attacks us because of the raid?"

"I don't exactly know. Anubis is so dangerous because he is quite unpredictable. But if you would be attacked, I'm quite certain that the Asgard would at least help you, and if you give me a head warning I'll send in some troops too. He might suspect that we have stolen his ships and goods, but he wouldn't know for certain. I'm planning on using an uninhabited decoy planet to prevent him from finding out where we came from. Though he probably knows where Avalon or Earth is by now."

"You're saying that we might be under threat from Anubis?"

"Might be in the same way that everything in the whole galaxy is under threat from Anubis. He was already dangerous when I beat him last time, but now he is even more dangerous."

"You beat Anubis?"

"In a way. I infiltrated his ship, murdered my way through his personal guards but when I reached him myself I was just too late. He was away to a place where even I wouldn't go. He had ascended, though I don't know by which means. I stole several of his ships, and I murdered all the important commanders he had, leaving his armies leaderless. The system lords did the rest."

"You stole several of his ships?"

"Indeed. I did."

"And what happened to them?"

"I kept them, partially for my own defence and partially for storage. But I already told you why."

"Oh, yeah. Can you tell me a bit more about what the dangers on this mission are?" Woolsey asked.

"Of course. The most danger comes from the Kull warriors, but we have the anti-armour gun to cover those, and from the fleet. So we have to move fast, to avoid detection from the fleet."

"What do you plan on doing if the fleet bombards you from orbit?"

"Duck away, shoot back and escape through the gate."

"And if the gate is guarded by jaffa and kulls?"

"Duck away, shoot back and escape through the gate when all the jaffa are dead."

"And what if someone gets hurt?"

"Depends on how serious it is. If someone threw his toe against something, then I don't think it will really endanger the mission. But if someone is seriously injured, there is always the sarcophagus on the planet, and there are always some healing items on the ships. I can operate both well enough to cure most injuries."

"Most?"

"If someone had an unlucky collision with a black hole it would be too tough to repair, even for me."

"Aha. I see. But how would you respond if someone of the group got lost?"

"I'd find him and drag him back towards the group personally."

"OK. And what would you do if your group somehow got separated, and one part of the group got caught by the enemy before you could find them?"

"Well, if they're in a prison I can easily get them out. And if they're not in a prison I don't see why they would need me to escape."

"And what if one of them is injured?"

"I'd heal them, but you already asked that question."

"Oh, I'm sorry. What would you do if you discovered an large threat on the mission?"

"That depends on what the threat is. If it's a ship, I'd either steal it or destroy it. If it's a weapon of mass destruction, I'd destroy it."

"Would you not try to steal a weapon of mass destruction?"

"No, I would not. Weapons of mass destruction threaten most often civilians. I do not threaten civilians for something there government or military have done, no matter how bad. Not until I am provoked, and then only in very small measures. Innocent ones should never have to suffer for the crimes of their government."

"I understand. We have such a policy too here on Earth. Sadly, there are still many weapons of mass destruction left from the cold war. But what would you do if one of Anubis' Jaffa, or Kull warriors perhaps, would take civilians hostage?"

"I'd first try to reason with them, but if that does not work I'd use brute force to take out the jaffa or kulls responsible."

"I understand. I believe I have enough information now to report to my superiors. Thank you for your time." Woolsey said as he left.

"Goodbye, Mister Woolsey." Minos said as Woolsey left the room.

* * *

"Well, that wasn't so bad as I expected." Minos said to O'Neill, who stood waiting outside the room.

"Really?" O'Neill asked in surprise.

"Yeah. I've had interrogations that were much worse than this one. Especially the ones by the Goa'uld." Minos answered.

"Yeah, ok I've been 'interrogated' by the Goa'uld a few times myself, and a few times to many at that. They love killing me, that's for certain."

"They enjoyed killing me too. But that was only until I escaped, and started to 'haunt' them straight through the galaxy. That part is fun for me instead of for them."

"I can imagine." O'Neill said with a grin. "Now let's hope the NID and the Pentagon guys in Washington approve the mission. I'd really like to annoy Anubis a little."

"We aren't going to annoy him a little, we're gonna steal a . That's kind of a big annoyance, seeing that I'll probably blow up all the shipyards on the planet, and steal a heckload of weapons-grade naquadah. He certainly isn't going to like that."

"If I could laugh evilly like they always do in movies, I'd do it now."

"You can't?" Minos asked.

"Nope. Never tried, too. I'm more of a movie quote guy." O'Neill answered.

"Aha. I see." Minos said. "Do you think that Woolsey guy can laugh evilly?" Minos asked.

"Woolsey? I'd be surprised if that guy even can laugh. Or show emotions. He's like a Vulcan or something."

"The Vulcans from the tv-show?" Minos asked.

"Exactly the ones. How'd you know?"

"Well, you mentioned them when we were on Thor's ship on our way to the replicator home planet. And Carter explained it when Thor didn't understand it."

"Oh, yeah. I remember now. It was right after you transported back onto the bridge after you were healed by the Asgard healing thingies."

"Yep. They did a pretty good job at repairing me then. I would have died there, if it weren't for their medical technologies."

"Yeah, the Asgard are pretty advanced, waaay ahead of everything we've seen until now, except for maybe the Ancients."

"No, I think their medical technology can rival the ones of the Ancients now. Well, the last medical technology of the Ancients I can recall having seen, at least."

"Which is from when exactly?" O'Neill asked curiously.

"A long time ago." Minos answered.


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: school is boring. Stupid timetables keep switching all over without my knowledge...

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 24 – Robbing Anubis

* * *

'Kawoosh!' did the wormhole on Pe'klo. A young kid came walking out, relaxed like he hadn't a care in the world. In front of the Stargate were some guards. Being a pretty important planet of Anubis due to its naquadah resources and shipyards, the guard was plentiful. Four Kull warriors stood behind several hundred jaffa in several buildings, armed with big guns and cannons. They had stormed forward when they heard the wormhole opening. But they stopped running and charged their weapons when they saw the kid coming through.

"Hi guys!" The kid said cheerily.

"Identify yourself!" said the lead jaffa.

"Well, yeah, that might be a kind of a problem." The kid started.

"Silence! Identify yourself!" shouted the lead jaffa.

"Should I silent now, or identify myself? Make a choice, buddy." The kid answered, seeming unafraid of the guards.

"You will die for your impudence, child!" shouted the jaffa.

"Try me!" the kid shouted back.

The jaffa, who started going red at the sight of the kid ignoring his orders, fired his staff weapon. That would teach the kid some manners, if he survived. He hoped not, he hated kids. Especially the ones that talked back. But the blast missed.

"How...!" managed the jaffa to shout as he stopped mid sentence. There kid was nowhere to be seen.

" Hey asshole!" the kid screamed from on top of the building. "Catch me if you can!"

"Get him!" the jaffa shouted, sending his other jaffa to chase the kid. The four Kull warriors kept their ground, standing guard over the still active gate.

* * *

When the kid had managed to draw all the jaffa away from the gate, four people came through, armed with weird-looking guns. The Kull warriors raised their wrist-guns at the sight of the four people, but their weird guns blazed and the Kulls exploded in four small explosions.

"You think Minos will be ok?" Carter asked.

"Of course he will. You were there when we all defeated the replicators. He can handle himself against a few jaffa. He'll be okay." O'Neill answered.

"I agree. We should proceed to the target." Teal'c added.

"C'mon guys." Daniel said as he signalled the others to come.

Ten minutes later, the four people had found their way through the small forest that separated the town from the Stargate, and they had arrived in the town. They proceeded their ways through a large temple of some sorts.

"When do you think Minos will arrive?" Carter asked nervously.

"The question is: Why are you so late?" Minos said from the throne in the temple where he sat, relaxed, like he hadn't got a care in the world.

"Minos! Where were you, and more important, how did you got here so fast?" O'Neill said.

"Better question: What took you so long? I've been sitting here for at least five minutes. I even had time to stash away the stuff I stole from the jaffa."

"What happened to the jaffa?" Daniel asked.

"They think they're butterflies flying around in fields of eternal blossom."

"Really?" Daniel asked.

"What do you think?" Minos retorted.

"I think that you're not gonna tell us the answer." O'Neill said.

"You're right. Now let's proceed with the plan. I need two people to search the city for valuable things. And I need two people to come with and hijack one of the ships in orbit."

"Wait, how many ships are in orbit?" O'Neill asked.

"There are two spaceworthy ships in orbit, and six more in the making." Minos answered.

"Sounds like Anubis is building an army."

"More than you might think." Minos answered. "But we must hurry."

"Carter, you're with Daniel and you'll search out the city for anything of value. Teal'c you're with me and Minos."

"Carter, here are some small beacons. I can beam the things up you plant them on." Minos said as he threw a small bag with things in it to Carter. She caught it and together with Daniel she left the small temple they were in.

* * *

"Minos, now what's your plan with hijacking the ship?" O'Neill asked.

"I'll ask to be beamed up, I'll clear the guards around it and I'll transport you up. We'll make our way to the bridge, kill the lead Goa'uld and then we'll clear the ship of jaffa."

"Ok, but how do you plan to ask to be beamed up?" O'Neill asked.

"There's a communication device underneath this chair. It'll connect with the ship, and I'll ask in Goa'uld to be transported up."

"OK, cool. I guess we're ready when you are, right Teal'c?" O'Neill asked.

"I am ready, O'Neill." Teal'c answered.

Minos opened up a hidden chamber underneath the chair, and he took the communications device out. He talked into the device, waiting for an answer. A few moments later the rings appeared from the platform Minos was standing on, beaming him away.

Several seconds later, Minos talked through the radio.

"Are you ready for transport? The transporter room is clear."

"We're ready." O'Neill answered, as he and Teal'c stepped onto the platform. A few seconds later the rings came up, and they found themselves in the ring room of the Ha'tak in orbit over Pe'klo.

"That was fast." O'Neill commented when he saw ten jaffa lying still on the ground.

"They're only stunned, but they won't wake up for a few hours." Minos answered. "Let's go."

Minos led the way towards the bridge of the Ha'tak, evading most of the guards and patrols on their way. Suddenly, a loud alarm started to ring.

"Crap. They've discovered us." Minos said.

"Can't you do something about it?" O'Neill asked.

"Already doing it." Minos answered. "Follow me."

"Ok." O'Neill said.

Minos jogged away on a quick pace, O'Neill and Teal'c keeping up.

* * *

"Halt! Identify yourselves!" Minos heard from behind him. He stopped running and turned around slowly. There were twenty jaffa behind them, all staff weapons charged and ready to kill.

"Identify yourselves!" The lead jaffa shouted.

"I'm Minos. Nice to meet ya. Not." Minos shouted the last part out. He pushed O'Neill and Teal'c against the wall, out of harms reach. The jaffa fired at Minos' shout, but Minos evaded their blasts. He jumped over them, touching the high ceiling in the corridor, and landed right on top of the jaffa leader.

A quick brawl followed where the Jaffa tried to hurt Minos, but Minos evaded all their blows and countered them. One minute later, the remaining jaffa were either unconscious or paralyzed. Minos stood up from the remnants of the brawl, and dusted his sleeves off.

"Tssk. Wasn't even a challenge." Minos said. "Come on, let's go."

Minos jogged away in the same, quite relaxed pace he'd jogged in before, leaving the twenty unmoving jaffa behind.

They arrived near the bridge of the Ha'tak in orbit around the planet only a few minutes later. On their way to the bridge they'd met another three patrols of jaffa, all taken down by Minos. Minos calmly opened the bridge doors, waiting for the jaffa and Goa'uld to see him as he walked calmly in.

"Guards! Get them!" The Goa'uld in command of the ha'tak screamed.

* * *

Minos had anticipated this, and was already running towards the first guard. Minos grabbed his staff weapon and swung it around with a force that belied his size, launching the jaffa to whom the staff belonged straight over the bridge and into the opposing wall. He charged into the other jaffa that manned the bridge, using the stolen staff weapon as a stick to take down the jaffa.

Meanwhile O'Neill and Teal'c hadn't been sitting still. O'Neill had shot the jaffa that manned the consoles of the Ha'tak and Teal'c had locked all the doors leading from and to the bridge, making sure that no one escaped.

When Minos had almost finished throwing the jaffa around after an quite powerful throw that launched four jaffa into the air, the Goa'uld that was in control of the ha'tak joined the battle. He blew away all the jaffa with a hand-device, leaving only a slightly panting Minos that was shooting glares at him.

"Bow before your god." The Goa'uld boomed.

"No." Minos answered.

"Bow before your god!" the Goa'uld boomed again.

"No." Minos repeated.

"Then you shall die!" the Goa'uld said, as he stood up quickly to use the hand device against Minos. But when he shot the wave of energy, Minos wasn't standing where he stood anymore. The Goa'uld suddenly paralyzed, and looked down. Minos was lying on the ground, both arms in the air, a sword in each of his hands. The Goa'uld looked down, and saw that the swords entered his body, blood leaking from the wounds.

* * *

Minos stood up, holding the Goa'uld with his swords, and flung him in a corner of the bridge.

"Well, that was quite messy." O'Neill commented on the large stain of blood that covered the throne in the Pel'tak.

"I was improvising." Minos retorted.

"What did you need us for, actually?" O'Neill asked.

"I need you to fly this ship. I'm taking care of the other one." Minos said on a tone that left no room for discussion. "I need you to keep the ship still, and to make sure that the other ha'tak captain doesn't know what's going on until it is too late."

"OK."

"I'll communicate with you when I've hijacked the other ship. Bye." Minos said as he jogged away towards the ring room, leaving O'Neill and Teal'c behind.

"O'Neill, I will take control of the ship if you can defend the Pel'tak." Teal'c said.

"Ok, T. I might check up on Carter and Daniel as well." O'Neill said.

"Carter, Daniel, come in please." O'Neills voice sounded through the radio.

"We're here, sir. We've put the beacons on a lot of things so far." Carter answered.

"Where exactly are you?" O'Neills voice sounded again.

"We're in some kind of storage. There were a few jaffa here, but we've taken care of them. We've found lots of weapons and naquadah, sir."

"Good work, Carter. Minos is taking care of the second ship now and we've secured the first one."

"On his own?" Carter asked.

"Yes, he practically ordered us to stay here." O'Neill answered.

"Sam!" Daniel exclaimed.

"Coming!" Sam yelled back. "What's the matter?" Sam asked.

"Look at this!" Daniel exclaimed.

"What's the matter?" O'Neills voice sounded in from the radio.

"Sir, there's at least five tonnes of refined naquadah here." Sam said, the amazement audible in her voice.

"We can find a use for that." O'Neill said.

"You surely can say that." Sam answered.

"Not wanting to interrupt your discussion," Minos started, "But I think I have control over the second ship now."

"What's your plan?" O'Neill asked.

"I'm gonna fire a strange sort bolt from this ship to yours. It should transport all living beings that are not on the bridge back to the surface of the planet. It's not gonna do any more damage than that." Minos said.

"Ok, we're ready when you are." O'Neill said as he looked to Teal'c.

"OK, here it goes." Minos said.

O'Neill saw the other ships weapons charge, and fire a bolt simultaneously. The bolts dissipated slightly, forming a large energy wave that ran over the ha'tak where O'Neill and Teal'c were. The wave, which was coloured a light red, disappeared completely after it had passed over the ship.

"I'll transport back to your bridge, and clear this ship too, O'Neill." Minos' voice said through the radio.

"Ok."

* * *

Minos appeared on the bridge of O'Neills ha'tak a minute later. He walked to the control consoles, pushed a few buttons and the same wave that had rolled over the first ha'tak now rolled over the second.

"That was cool. You've got to explain how you did that." O'Neill said.

"It's really simple. The goa'uld just never figured out how to use it correctly. I'll explain later, when we're back." Minos said. " Carter, are you ready to beam everything up?"

"We are, but how are you gonna beam everything up? There are no rings down here, and I'm not dragging it all the way back." Carter said.

"Wait and see." Minos answered.


	25. Chapter 25

A/N: This is the last of the chapters I had in stock. If you're lucky, there might be another chapter by tomorrow, but if you're unlucky it can take the whole weekend.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 25 – Fat loot

* * *

"How did you do that?" Carter asked.

"Do what?" Minos returned with a sly grin.

"Transport things without using the rings."

"By using the rings with a few little swings."

"No, seriously." Carter said, impervious to Minos' rhyming.

"I slightly modified the Goa'uld transporter, so that it doesn't require rings. It's not really that hard."

"Can you explain that a little further?" Carter asked.

"I certainly can. But I think that should wait until later. I think it would be best if we got the heck out of here before Noob arrives." Minos answered.

"Noob?" O'Neill asked questioningly.

"A-noob-is. He who a noob is." Minos explained.

"Oh, Anubis. Nice nickname for him." O'Neill commented.

"I give most of the Goa'uld nicknames." Minos said.

"Like?"

"Nerdy, Conehead, Ball, Hat-whore, Sissy, Moth, O-sissy and Scar, for example."

"Which are nicknames for?" Daniel asked.

"Nirrti, Cronus, Ba'al, Hathor, Isis, Mot, Osiris and Sokar."

"Gotta remember those. Though some of them are dead already."

"We might want to leave the system now. Anubis' fleet is coming, and I don't know if he'd be too pleased if he knew we had stolen most of his stuff." Minos said.

"But what are you going to do with their shipyards? I mean, if we don't destroy them Anubis can just build new ones." Carter interjected.

"I think he'll suffer a small setback due to the fact that we've robbed most of the valuables on the planet and ships that were not finished yet." Minos said.

"But Daniel and I haven't been to those ships. How can you know where the valuables are?" Carter asked.

"I kinda set the transporter on auto-search." Minos said.

"You what?"

"I set the transporter on auto-search. I built a goa'uld-transporter-upgrade package once. I decided that it might come in handy now, so I took it with me from Avalon. It has an auto-search function, which searches for anything of value."

"You built that on your own?"

"I have a lot of free time. Besides, it's not really complicated."

"Not-really-complicated as in I would understand it, or as in only Carter would understand it."

"The last one. Probably."

"So that's complicated, right."

"Yah, but the search is finished. I think we can go now." Minos said.

"Ya think we should leave a message for Noob?" O'Neill suggested.

"Oh, that's probably a good idea." Minos answered.

He walked towards the control console on the Pel'tak of his ship, and the weapons charged. Several seconds later a multitude of bolts flew towards the planet.

"What was that?" O'Neill asked.

"That was my message to Noob. You might want to look at the planet." Minos said with a small grin.

Teal'c turned the image on the view-screen of the Ha'tak so that they could read the message that was burned in fiery letters on the planet. 'Anubis stinks!'

"Seriously?" O'Neill commented.

"Yep. Opening hyperdrive window in three-two- one ... GO!" Minos said, stopping any comments about his message to Anubis.

* * *

"Sir," The sergeant that came rushing into Hammonds office started, "NORAD has picked up 2 signals, both belonging to Goa'uld motherships."

"When will they arrive?" Hammond asked.

"Just under an hour, sir"

"Execute the emergency protocol." Hammond ordered.

* * *

Meanwhile, on one of the Ha'taks in hyperspace.

"O'Neill," Minos opened a channel, "We're in communications range with Earth now. I think it'd be best if you'd send a message."

"Yeah, that's probably smart. Can you drop us out of hyperspace?" O'Neill.

"Will do." Minos said as he closed the connection. A heartbeat later both ships dropped out of hyperspace.

Teal'c opened the connection with the SGC from the bridge of the Ha'tak.

"Hi guys!" O'Neill said cheerily.

"Colonel O'Neill!" Master sergeant Harriman said, seemingly surprised. "We hadn't expected you. I will call for general Hammond immediately."

A few seconds later General Hammond came into the view of the camera.

* * *

"Hi, General." O'Neill said.

"Good to see you, Colonel. I take it the mission was a success?"

"Yes, Sir. We've successfully stolen two Ha'taks. And some other stuff, of course, but I don't exactly know what and how many. But it's good stuff, sir."

"When will you arrive in orbit?" Hammond asked.

"In about an hour, sir. But I don't know if being in orbit is such a good idea. These ships are pretty large, so maybe someone can see or detect us."

"You're probably right. You might as well hide on or behind the moon. People will be unable to detect you on there, especially if you land on the dark side of it."

"We'll do that, sir. You might want to prepare for a load of goods. Minos loaded both ships pretty full, I think. We'll need a place for it to transport to."

"What should we be expecting?" Hammond asked.

"Minos said something about weapons, but that'd probably be staff weapons, zats and hand devices. Oh, and refined naquadah, sir. We've stolen Anubis' supply of it."

"You stole Anubis' supply of naquadah?" Hammond exclaimed.

"Yes, sir. At least, everything we could find, sir."

"I'm expecting an interesting debriefing. Hammond out." Hammond said as he closed the connection.

* * *

"Can you open an hyperspace window, Minos." O'Neill asked as he opened a connection to Minos' Ha'tak.

"Sure thing, Colonel." Minos said. Two seconds later both ships continued their journey towards Earth.

One hour later, two Ha'tak class vessels appeared out of hyperspace behind the moon, to avoid detection by the general population. O'Neill opened a channel to the SGC.

"Hi General." He said.

"Colonel." Hammond greeted back. "We've built a place where you can transport all the objects down. The only problem is that we do not have a ring system installed yet. I'm hoping that Major Carter or perhaps Minos can figure something out."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Minos already has found a way around that when we beamed everything aboard."

"All-right. You can transport the objects to the old hangar outside the base. We're transferring the coordinates right now."

"Got them, Sir." O'Neill answered after he received a nod from Teal'c. "We'll start transporting the things now, sir."

"All-right. Oh, and colonel?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You did a wonderful job. Give my thanks to your team, and Minos of course."

"Will do, Sir. O'Neill out."

The total transporting took little over one hour to complete, thanks to Minos' upgrades to the Goa'uld transporter and the efficiency of the SGC personnel down on the planet.

"Colonel O'Neill." Hammond chimed in over the transmission.

"Yes, sir."

"I've talked to the President, and they think that the motherships should stay on the far side of the moon. He also agreed with me that you can't stay there forever, so he issued that a crew is formed and that they guard the ship."

"I hope it's not an NID-crew, Sir?" O'Neill said, afraid of having to steal the same ship twice in a row.

"No, Colonel. The motherships are a matter of national security, and fall under air force jurisdiction. We will have to organise a branch for our own ships, seeing that we now have them."

"It, sir. We only have one. The other one is Minos' ship."

"Oh, my apologies."

"Doesn't matter, General." Minos suddenly joined into the communications.

"Minos, I wasn't aware you could have conference calls with Goa'uld motherships." O'Neill said.

"Actually, you can't. But I've upgraded the Goa'uld communication systems. Again. Oh, and General, you can keep one of the ships and all the other stuff aboard, but I need this one."

"All-right," General Hammond said. "Thanks for the help and the goods. You can beam the teams in the gate-room away. They're ready."

"General, Colonel, I'm afraid I must leave now. I should be going back home, to Avalon. Thanks for all the fun. I'm thinking you'll hear from me in about a week or so."

"Where are Carter and Daniel?" O'Neill asked, ignoring the temptation to ask more about next time.

"They should arrive on your Ha'tak in a few moments." Minos answered.

"We're here, Sir." Carter said over the radio. "We're ready."

"Well, I guess it is goodbye for now, Minos."

"Bye." Minos said as he closed the connection.

* * *

Minos' Ha'tak slowly turned, and jumped into hyperspace a few moments after, leaving only one Ha'tak on the dark side of the moon behind.

On the bridge of the Ha'tak, SG-1 patiently waited for the other personnel to arrive. Only a few minutes after Minos left, the relief crew arrived, consisting of SG-2 and 5. After they said their usual greetings and small talk and, of course, advice on how to run the Ha'tak, SG-1 left. They transported down to the planet by the upgraded Goa'uld transporter that Minos had left behind.

"Welcome back, SG-1. You did a bloody great job in stealing that Ha'tak." Hammond greeted his premier team as they were beamed directly into the gate room.

"Thank you, Sir." O'Neill greeted his commanding officer.

"Briefing is in one hour. Now if you would all be so kind to report to the infirmary for post mission checks, we can have those out of the way and start the briefing on time."

"Will do, Sir."

SG-1 came walking into the infirmary ten minutes later, catching doctor Frasier by surprise.

* * *

"Wow. Not one of you is injured." She exclaimed in surprise. "That's a rarity around here."

"Aww, come on doc. We're not that bad, are we?" O'Neill mocked.

"Well, sir, we kind of are. On most missions there is something, someone injured or something broken." Sam said.

"Really?" O'Neill said with a fake tone. "I hadn't noticed it at all!"

"I must agree with Mayor Carter, O'Neill. On most of our missions we have returned injured, especially in comparison to other teams." Teal'c said.

"Well, that's because we're the first team. We're supposed to go into first contact with people. And that doesn't always turn out well." O'Neill retorted.

"Mind if I interrupt, Colonel?" Frasier said on a tone that sounded sweet, but had an undertone of pure acid.

"Maybe we get injured so much because we always get needles stuck in our butt." O'Neill sarcastically suggested, but he followed Frasier to the curtain.

"Stop complaining. Needles don't need to hurt if you sit still!" Frasier said.

"Well, I'm bad at sitting still." O'Neill retorted. "Always was, even as a kid."

"Why do I have absolutely no trouble believing that?" Frasier rhetorically muttered under her breath.

* * *

After they all had the usual needle session with Frasier, SG-1 was cleared to leave the infirmary and they left for the conference room. Due to O'Neills stubbornness it had taken almost an hour to check them, and they were just in time for the debriefing. Carter suspected O'Neill had done it on purpose, but she couldn't prove anything.

They'd all taken place in their usual seats surrounding the conference table, and they'd started bringing General Hammond up to speed on the facts around their last mission. Hammond listened carefully as O'Neill told the main story, with additions from Carter of course. They'd hadn't left out the part where Minos used his ships weapons to write 'Anubis stinks' on the planet, and Hammond had laughed as they told it. Minos might not do everything as usual, but there was something to say about his way of doing things.

Almost two hours after the briefing started, when O'Neill had finally finished recounting his story, an Airman came in.

"Sir. We have the reports on the goods beamed down, sir."

"Very well. Let's see." Hammond said after he took the reports from the airmen, who left soon after.

"Wow. This is certainly a lot of supplies. You've stolen almost ten tonnes of weapons-grade naquadah from Anubis, together with over nine-thousand staff weapons, five thousand Zats and two thousand sets of armour. This is enough to build a whole army!" Hammond concluded.

"Anubis is gonna be so pissed." O'Neill said.


	26. Chapter 26

A/N: Ok, you were lucky. When I started writing this fanfic, this was the second chapter (or so) which I had in mind. It kinda exploded outwards because I trailed off the original path.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 26 –Dr. Weir?

* * *

"Carter?" O'Neill asked as he knocked on the door of her lab.

"Yes?" Carter answered, sounding a bit annoyed by the interruption.

"What-cha doing?"

"I'm working on understanding how Minos' device works." Carter said with a small sigh.

"Which one of them?"

"The device that upgrades the usual Goa'uld transporter to a transporter which almost equals the Asgard ones, sir. It's really interesting how he managed to override the safety measures of the transporters. And of course, how he managed to compensate for the uncertainty of the size of the objects in the transporter."

"Aha. I understand."

"Really?"

"No." O'Neill said with a devious grin.

"Sir, if I can figure out how this transporter works, and of course the technology surrounding it, then we may be able to use it for greater good. We can even use it to transport people and goods on earth, sir."

"So no more annoying long flights?" O'Neill said jokingly.

"Exactly, sir. Think of the consequences of all the current methods of transportation being replaced by those transporters. I mean, it would still be more convenient to use current transportation methods for short distances, but for long distances it would reduce the travelling time to only a couple of seconds."

"Wouldn't the energy requirements be enormous?"

"Yeah, that would be the only disadvantage, I guess. But I'm sure we can figure a way around that. I mean, with all the naquadah we have now, we can build a serious lot of naquadah reactors."

"So you're gonna be busy for a while?" O'Neill asked jokingly.

'_Unauthorized offworld activation!' _sounded through the speakers.

"Looks like we're both gonna be busy, sir."

* * *

Carter and O'Neill walked to the control room together, where Hammond, Daniel and Teal'c were already waiting.

"Who is it?" Hammond asked to the sergeant in control of the gate.

"We received Minos' IDC, sir."

"Open the iris."

The iris opened, and a few second later Minos came walking through. He appeared normal, but something felt not right. Maybe it was the way he looked, a bit ragged and tired, or maybe grim, but maybe it was nothing.

* * *

"Minos, welcome. What brings you here?" Hammond asked when he greeted Minos.

"General Hammond, I'd like to invite you to an important meeting."

"What meeting?" Hammond asked, as he walked with Minos to the conference room, followed by SG-1.

"I'm hosting an important meeting for several advanced races in this galaxy. The Tok'ra will be there, as well as the Asgard. Since we're allies I'd like to invite you too."

"What's the meeting about?" Hammond asked, his curiosity piqued by Minos' language.

"The future, and what it will bring."

"You're holding a meeting about the future?" O'Neill asked incredulously.

"Yep. I'm not spoilering until the meeting, so you might as well refrain from asking in that direction."

"So what do you want us to do?" Hammond asked.

"First of all sent out either a delegation or come in person to the meeting, and second of all tell all advanced civilizations you are friends with to come too. The more planets and people, the better and the more chance to succeed."

"For what to succeed?" Daniel asked.

"Still not spoilering." Minos said. "I've already invited the Tok'ra and the Asgard. If you know any friendly, advanced civilizations I might not they are welcome too. Except for the Goa'uld, of course."

"So you want us to invite only advanced civilizations to your conference?" Hammond asked.

"Yes. I'm guessing that you, as a space-exploring race, have made at least some allies at some point in time. I would like as many planets as possible to come to the conference."

"When will it be?" Hammond asked.

"In two days. That's exactly fifty-one hours from now." Minos said after a second of pause to calculate it.

"I'll send the message to my superiors." Hammond said. "Is there anything else you want us to do besides contact our allies?"

"No. Well apart from being there when the conference starts, on time of course. But I must go now. I'm afraid I have a really awful lot of things to do."

"All-right."

"Oh, and by the way, I was requested that SG-1 partake in the discussions. So it would be nice if you'd come. But I must go now. Goodbye." Minos said.

"Ok, we'll come." O'Neill said. "Bye Minos."

"Can we go, General?" Daniel asked.

"As far as I'm concerned, yes. And I don't think the NID can interfere with this one, so most likely you can go."

"Thanks, General." O'Neill said as they all watched Minos go through the gate. He turned around on the last moment, and raised his hand in a greeting.

* * *

"Who do you think requested us at the conference?" O'Neill asked when they were all in the mess hall, eating.

"I'm not sure. It could be the Asgard, I mean, they seem to 'like' you." Daniel answered.

"Yeah, that'd be possible. And the Tok'ra, I mean Jacob, could have requested us for Sam." O'Neill said.

"Well, that's if my dad comes. I'm not so sure about that. I'd rather expect the high-council to show up." Sam said.

"And who of the Asgard do you think would come?" Daniel asked.

"I'm hoping Thor. But probably someone of their High-council too."

"It would be favourable if both Jacob Carter and Thor showed up." Teal'c said.

"Yeah, that's true. Though I think Minos has invited more than just the Asgard and the Tok'ra. I mean, there are enough advanced races out there, even if you disregard the Goa'uld." Carter said.

"Like the Nox?" O'Neill suggested.

"Yeah, exactly." Carter answered. "But I think I should go now. I still have a lot of work to do around the device Minos left behind."

"Bye, Carter."

Sam left for her lab and only minutes after Daniel leaves too. Teal'c needed to train the new recruits again, thus leaving only O'Neill behind, ready to enslave himself to the almighty gods of paperwork again.

* * *

Two days later, SG-1 is in the conference room, together with two diplomats from the IOA and Washington, Mr Woolsey and Doctor Weir.

"SG-1, I'd like you to meet Doctor Weir. She's a diplomat and she'll accompany you to Avalon for the conference. And of course, you all know mister Woolsey."

"Pleasure to meet you." Weir said.

"Now, I'll brief you in short on the conference, and who we guess you'll encounter." Hammond said.

"Minos, the Ancient who organises the conference, is the first one. He looks like a kid, but he's really a lot older than that. He's hard to describe really, because we don't know him for that long. But as far as we can tell he's honest. He sometimes acts the age he is, and sometimes acts the age he looks. Since we don't exactly know what the conference is all about, we don't know what he wants from us and what he'll do or how he'll act."

"So he's unpredictable?" Dr. Weir asked.

"If I may, Sir. Minos is a tad bit unpredictable at times. But he'll do anything he deems important enough, and he does care about others. He's just a bit random." O'Neill answered.

"So he's a bit unpredictable, but nice?" Weir asked for confirmation.

"Exactly. Next up are the Asgard. The Asgard are technologically the second most advanced race in two galaxies we've encountered so far. They are guided by logic, and do not really show their emotions. But they have been sympathetic towards us, and they are in our debts for the help we gave against the Replicators. We don't exactly know what that'll mean because we don't know what the conference is about. The Asgard do not tend to interfere in the business of less-advanced societies but they still protect several of them from the Goa'uld. They are the 'culture-bringing' type. They don't interfere, but they guide civilizations. Though they will act if something serious threatens a civilization, like an invasion by another civilization.

Next up are the Tok'ra. The Tok'ra are essentially the same race as the Goa'uld, but their ideologies are the exact opposite. The Tok'ra fight a guerrilla war against the System Lords, and they are sympathetic towards all human-based societies, though most of them do regard most societies as 'primitive'. The Tok'ra are essentially the same as the Asgard, they don't interfere with the more primitive societies than the Asgard, but they do protect them."

Hammond stopped his monologue for a short pause. Dr. Weir used the time to ask a question.

"So, General, if I understand you correct, both the Asgard and the Tok'ra usually don't interfere, but they are sympathetic to us?"

"Exactly. We have an alliance with both of them, and they are the only ones, except for Minos of course, of which we know that they will be at the convention."

"Can we guess which other races there will be at the conference?" Dr. Weir asked.

"Yes, at least for a small part. Minos is an Ancient, so he'll probably be familiar with the Nox. My guess is that they'll be there too, though I'm not sure. From all four great races of long ago, the Nox live the most secluded. They have only one planet, and they don't interfere with anything. The only time we've seen a Nox outside their planet, was with the Triad from the Tollan. One of them served as impartial judge.

Those are the races that will be most likely to show up on the conference, but there may be others. I trust Minos, and his capabilities as an Ancient to keep everyone safe, whatever dangers there may be."

"General, If I may, what exactly is our goal here?" Dr. Weir asked.

"To be honest with you, I don't know. Minos didn't want to say anything about what the conference is, or why it is held. Our main goal is to protect Earth's interests. If there is anything we can do for our allies it's a bonus, of course, but Earth has a priority. I, and with me the rest of the governments, trust in all of you to carry out that mission."

"The IOA has agrees with your goals, General Hammond." Woolsey informed. "But I am unsure why SG-1 is required to come."

"Minos specifically requested one or all of them to come to the conference, Mr. Woosley. That's probably because he knows them better that you or me, or Dr. Weir for that part." Hammond answered.

"Then I am done. You may proceed with your mission. I see no immediate or important problems with your goals." Woolsey said.

"With that settled, I want you to report to the gate room in fifteen minutes. No weapons, but for the rest the usual gear. I don't think it would be appreciated if you come in carrying a lot of weapons, so we leave them at home. Dismissed." Hammond said.

* * *

SG-1 and Doctor Weir stood in the gate-room ten minutes later, waiting for the gate to dial. Dr. Weir shuddered softly at the sight of it.

"First time through the gate?" Carter asked.

"Yes. I only learned of its existence a month ago. It's all quite amazing when you think about it. Your molecules and atoms being broken down completely, and then sent through subspace to the other gate."

The gate finished spinning, and the usual blue-white 'kawoosh' came out. Dr. Weir stepped back, surprised by the sudden outburst.

"Don't worry. It's a breeze." O'Neill said as he stepped through.

Weir stood at in front of the vertical puddle of blue 'liquid'. She slowly put her hand in, and then stepped through.

"Was a breeze, wasn't it?" O'Neill asked on the other side.

"Yes. It certainly was. It's still amazing." Weir said, holding her hand above her eyes to shield herself from the bright sunlight on Avalon.

"Greetings." Tarin said, standing near the DHD, waiting for new arrivals. "I will escort you to the grand hall."

"Thanks Tarin." O'Neill said as Tarin led the way towards the main hall.


	27. Chapter 27

A/N: Just finished this chapter. Have fun reading!

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 27 - The Conference part 1

* * *

Sg-1 and Doctor Weir were led by Tarin to the place where the conference was held. They walked down the large stairs leading to the marketplace. Tarin suddenly turned left, instead of walking towards the palace.

"Where are we going?" O'Neill asked.

"To the Grand Hall."

"So I take it the grand hall is not in the palace?"

"You are correct. King Minos thought he needed something different for the conference. The Grand Hall is on the edge of town."

"Ok."

Fifteen minutes later they arrived in the Grand Hall. It was a big building, made out of white-ish stone that resembled the colour of marble, but was not quite it. It still was quite beautiful, especially for a building that large. The only thing missing was ornaments. There were virtually no decorations on the building at all, even the door was plain wood.

SG-1 and Doctor Weir entered the Grand Hall and Tarin returned to the gate to await other arrivals. They walked through a broad hallway, lit by windows to the outside. After several meters, they entered another door, leading to a reception area of some sorts. There were tables and chairs of various sizes placed casually around the area, and there was a large, open, double door that lead to the conference room.

The team entered the room, and saw Minos sitting on the chair at the head of the table. In the chairs next to him were on his right side two Asgard, and on the left side two Nox.

* * *

"Hello." Minos greeted them. "We'll start the conference in a few minutes. We're waiting for the others to arrive."

"Who are you expecting?" O'Neill asked.

"A good question. The Tok'ra are on their way now, they've just arrived by the gate. The Ohnes will be arriving shortly and the Galarans should be here any minute. That makes seven races total, if you include the Ancients like me."

"Are those all the advanced races in the Milky way?" O'Neill asked.

"No, there are plenty of them. Some of them didn't want to come, others couldn't come. And I hate races like the Aschen so I didn't even invite them."

Before anyone could say anything, the Tok'ra arrived. Jacob Carter and Councillor Garshaw entered the room, and sat down on one of the seats alongside the Nox.

"Greetings." Garshaw said.

"Hello." Jacob added.

"Welcome to Avalon." Minos said. "We will await with the formal introductions until everyone is here."

"Can you now finally tell us what the conference is about?" Garshaw spoke.

"I most certainly can. But I won't. Not yet. We'll wait until everyone is here before I disclose what you were called here for."

"Who are we waiting for, then?" Selmak asked politely.

"For the Ohnes and the Galarans."

"Have you managed to draw the Ohnes from their planet? That has not happened in centuries." Garshaw spoke in amazement.

"I had pretty convincing arguments." Minos said with a grin.

"Such as?" Garshaw asked.

"I'm not gonna answer that. But if their ambassador sounds a bit 'grumpy', so to speak, it's because I may have had some trouble convincing them to come."

"Wait, are the Ohnes Nem's race?" Daniel asked.

"Nem as in the mate of Omoroca?" Minos returned.

"Yes, that one."

"Then yes. The Ohnes are the race of Omoroca. Have you met them already?"

"Yes, but only once. I helped Nem in determining the fate of Omoroca."

"Poor Omoroca." Minos said. "She sacrificed herself for your planet."

Minos continued after a short pause.

* * *

"Let us talk about that later." He said when the Ambassadors of the Ohnes and the Galarans came walking in.

"Greetings! Welcome to Avalon, and to this conference that will define our futures." Minos said. "I believe now is the time for formal introductions."

"I assume you all are familiar with some others, but you might not know everyone yet. These are members of the Asgard High Council, Odin and Thor. Then there are Anteaur and Lya from the Nox, Jacob Carter and Garshaw of Belote from the Tok'ra, Dr Weir, Jack O'Neill, Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c from Earth, Ambassador Varta from Galaran and Ambassador Gren from the Ohnes. I am Minos, an Ancient, and I will lead this conference."

Minos stopped to catch a breath.

"I will start this by answering the question that is on everybodies lips. What is the goal of this conference? That goal may sound simple, but will be extremely complex. I called you all here to help save every society in this galaxy that wishes to join us."

"From what do you want to save them from?" Odin asked after Minos stopped talking for a second.

"From war. Our galaxy and the galaxies surrounding it face an enormous threat. It is my wish to stop the threat from spreading and threatening any more galaxies."

"What is this threat you are talking about?" O'Neill spoke.

"Hmm. I think I can better tell you it in story-format. I'll try to keep it short and simple." Minos stated.

* * *

"A long time age, a seriously long time ago, before any of your races discovered space-travel, far before the great alliance of the four races was formed and even before the Ancients lived in this galaxy, there was a race in a galaxy far away. The race called themselves the Alterans.

The Alterans were the first sentient creatures in their galaxy, and since there was little other life, they had all the time and space they needed to evolve. They slowly did that, and as they evolved they developed technology. It was simple at first, but as time passed over the centuries, it became more complex. So complex that they eventually managed to go out into space. Soon after that they had colonised their entire solar system, and they wanted further. But they couldn't. Their technology limited them to their own star system.

Over the course of millennia, they eventually managed to develop enough technology to reach nearby star systems. But over the course of those millennia, they started questioning themselves. The Alterans believed in what they called 'Origin'. An ideological rift started to form when some Alterans strictly held themselves to the word of Origin, while others started believing in science and logic.

But they managed to hold their society together for many years. Over those years, their technology made enormous bursts forward, until they reached high enough levels to create the 'Astria Porta'. They spread the devices, which are now referred to as Stargates, Rings of the Ancestors, Chappa'ai or just plain gates, throughout their home galaxy. They used these gates to transport themselves to other planets in instants. But the ideological rift that had formed centuries earlier caused trouble.

The religious believers flocked together on planets, and the Alterans guided by logic and science chose other planets. They chose their own ways for a time. But not long thereafter, many of the Alterans that believed in logic started believing in Origin too. And the believers in Origin became more hostile towards the 'unbelievers' as they called them. Eventually, there was only one small colony of 'unbelievers' left.

They saw the threat of the believers in Origin, and they decided they had to act. Since it was illogical to stay and fight the believers, they chose to flee. With a fleet of several ships all the Alterans that hung to the principles of science and logic fled out of their home system, out of their galaxy. For a long time, they lived like nomads. They occasionally stopped in a star system on their way out of their home galaxy, but eventually they reached the void. After many years in the void between the galaxies, they found what they were looking for. A new home.

They named their home Avalon, or Via Lactea, The Milky Way in English. It was then an almost empty galaxy, with only a few non-sentient species of animals spread out over planets. They distanced themselves from the Alterans, and they called themselves otherwise. They called themselves the Ancients, for that was what they were. An ancient civilization in a galaxy where life had yet to evolve.

They colonized a new home, Terra, which is now called Earth. It was on that planet that they built their capitol city of Atlantis. From there they seeded stargates throughout the galaxy, for them and other creatures to use.

Millions of years later, the great wars came. Fighting off unheard enemies that do not exist in today's universe anymore, the Ancients grew. Both in technological and physical aspect they grew. They learned of a process called 'Ascension', where one sheds its physical body and continues to exist as pure energy, not limited by the possibilities of mortals. They tried to increase evolution, and some succeeded, but some others failed. It was then that they learned of another route, the spiritual route.

A being, pure of heart and soul, can ascend if it is evolutionary relatively advanced. The Ancients learned that art over time, over a long time. Too long. A great plague came out of nowhere, ravaging across the Ancients, killing everyone who fell prey to it. The Ancients fled again, to where exactly is unknown to me. Over time, they ascended or returned to Earth and ascended afterwards, until only rumours of living Ancients remained on planets where life had developed.

The enemy that now threatens life in this galaxy is one of very long ago. The remainder of the Alterans, the believers in Origin, are on their way to war. Soon, they will reach the gates of this galaxy. That is the enemy of which I am so fearful, the one enemy that will truly pose a challenge. They call themselves the Ori, the followers of the Origin.

The Alterans that founded Origin have evolved, and they have ascended too. In this galaxy, we are protected from their powers by my brethren, who have hidden this galaxy from their views for as long as they could. Although the Ancients here can act and protect us from attacks from the Ori directly, they will not act against any attacks from the followers of the Ori. As we speak, ships of war are being built, soldiers are being trained and weapons are being made. We must prepare for the onslaught, for they will not stop in destroying us."

Minos ended his monologue, and everybody sat in awe. Complete silence ruled the conference hall, as everybody tried to process the information Minos gave.

* * *

"Wow. That was unexpected." O' Neill said.

"Not really. The Ascended have known for a long time that the Ori would tempt to do something. What they did not know was when or how. The Ori themselves can not act in this galaxy. Their powers are no match for the Ancients in this galaxy. The other way around is the same. The Ancients cannot act in their galaxy, and protect this one at the same time. Partially because they do not want to, and partially because it would mean the destruction of one of the galaxies, or multiple planets at least."

"How do you know all that?" Odin asked.

"An old friend of mine had her suspicions, and she finally found the time right to send someone out. We knew that the Ori still inhabit the old Alteran home galaxy, so that is where we started our search. We visited many planets, some uninhabited and some full of factories of war, where countless ships are being built."

"Who was this old friend of yours?" Thor asked.

"She is called Gannos Lal, but she is known under many names. One of those names, which she often uses in this galaxy, is Morgan le Fay."

"The Morgan le Fay, the sorceress from the Arthurian legends?" Daniel asked.

"Exactly that one." Minos answered.


	28. Chapter 28

A/N: Update is a little late because of school. There will most likely come a third part to the conference, though I have to write it. I'll try to post a chapter once a week at the least.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 28 – The Conference Part 2

* * *

"How long have you known?" asked Anteaur of the Nox.

"Not long. I, well we both actually, had suspicions about what the Ori were planning, but it wasn't until I actually went there that I found out for sure. I reported it to Gannos, and she reported it to the others. They finally gave their consent to tell you about this threat." Minos answered.

"You went there?" Daniel asked.

"Yes. There being in another galaxy about a million light-years away. I went there by Stargate, because the Stargate network is compatible between the two galaxies."

"How will they be coming here?" O'Neill asked.

"They'll most likely use a Stargate, though that would only be large enough to allow several hundred soldiers at a time."

"How are they going to power their Stargate? I mean, dialling to another galaxy costs incredible amounts of energy." Carter asked.

"Well, they could temporarily 'boost' the Stargate, just like I did to go to their galaxy. Or they could use alternative sources of power. These are in essence the same people as the Gate-builders. They'd find a way."

"Which would still give the problem that they can send no ships through." Ambassador Varta from Galaran said.

"That problem could be countered by making a supergate. They are the gate builders just as much as the Ancients in this galaxy are, they know their stuff."

* * *

"What is a supergate?" Jacob asked.

"A supergate is essentially a Stargate, but then massive enough to allow ships to come through. It can connect to any gate, regardless of its size, but for ships to come through both sides need to be equally large. And, of course, the energy required to use a supergate is way more than the energy needed for a normal gate. The only thing I can think of that gives enough power to make an intergalactic connection with a supergate is a black hole."

"So they'd need to find a way around the effects from the black hole to make the connection?" Carter asked.

"Not necessarily. Absorbing all the power from a black hole pretty much annihilates its effects. Plus they have the technology to counter those effects. They're technologically extremely advanced, comparable to the Ancients in that case. Well, what's left of the Ancient technology. But it would probably be safe to say that their ships could beat pretty much everything we can throw at them."

"Then what do you want us to do?" Odin asked.

"To fight. To resist their attacks until a more permanent solution is to be found. And of course, to save as much lives as possible given the circumstances."

"And how do you want to do that?"

"My plan is to split the galaxy into multiple sectors at first. Every race will get a certain sector, the size depending on their defensive capabilities. I have plans for several defensive satellites, weapons only made for the defence of planets from orbit. If we have enough of them around the planets, then the Ori ships can be beaten. If there are one or two planets per sector defended by those satellites, then the people from other planets that are under attack from the Ori can flee there."

"It is not the way of the Nox to use weapons." Lya spoke.

"I know, but I don't think the way of the Nox applies in this particular situation. The threat we face is not something to be underestimated. It is either join them or be annihilated by them. If we stand together and are prepared, we might stand a chance."

"The Nox have always relied on hiding to stay safe." Anteaur said.

"You do not understand. The Ori are ascended beings, just like the Ancients. They are less powerful than the Ancients now, but they draw their power from their believers. The more believers, the more power. If they manage to sway roughly half of this galaxy into joining them, the Ori will be more powerful than the Ancients. The only thing keeping us safe from a direct attack by them is then gone. Your technology won't stand a chance against an attack from an army of Ascended beings. Everything will be lost. Where would the Ori go after they have annihilated any resistance? They would keep conquering other galaxies, defeating everything in their paths. Eventually they would become all-powerful."

"And would that be so bad? Not to sound offensive or anything, but the Ancient are pretty much doing nothing to protect us from them." O'Neill started.

"I understand your point, but what would you rather have? An all-powerful tyrant who rules your very existence, destroying every hint of freedom you now have, or a caretaker who observes from the distance, leaving your life open for everything you want to. Besides, the universe is not really meant to be ruled. It never was, and it could cope fine without."

"OK, I kind of like my freedom." O'Neill answered. "But how are you gonna cope with their ships. I mean, if their ships are as powerful as you say, how are you going to handle them?"

"I'm not sure about that yet. Maybe I'll try and build a warship myself. But it's actually not the ships I'm worrying about. It's their missionaries. The Ori will surely send out missionaries to convert the people in this galaxy to Origin."

* * *

"Are you sure about that?" Thor asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. I've been to their galaxy and I've seen them being trained. Priors, they call themselves. They have powers like a near-ascension human. And they have weapons specifically designed to enhance and augment those powers. They are selected on their beliefs, so converting them is not really an option."

"Can you defeat them?" Ambassador Gren from the Ohnes asked.

"Yes. I am sure I can defeat them on one on one. But that is not the real problem. The real problem is that I can't be on every planet in this galaxy at the same time. I'm only one person, and they are sure to send out a lot of Priors."

Then what do you wish of us besides defending specific planets?" Ambassador Gren asked.

"I want to have your confirmation and help in all these actions. I need to know whether you are up to the task of receiving millions of people from all over the galaxy. Food supplies need to be made, weapon stocks need to be prepared. Ships need to be built as fast as possible, defensive satellites need to be launched. We must all prepare for war."

"All-right. What info do you need?" O'Neill asked.

* * *

"I need to know at least one planet per race that is capable of receiving so many people on short notice. That makes at least seven planets in total, but the more planets, the easier it is going to get."

"How many refugees are we talking about?" Jacob asked.

"At least millions, if not more. The entire human population of this galaxy is about eight-hundred billion."

"That's a lot of people." Dr Weir said. "How many planets do you think we need to handle all the refugees?"

"As many as possible. I myself can protect at least four. Avalon, Arachnis, Terronis and Felinis. I have traded a lot with those planets and the relations are very good. They are not the most advanced peoples, but their planets hold room for at least several thousands of people, even more if I can build the infrastructure on time. I'm hoping you all could provide several other planets that are suitable to cope with lots of refugees."

"Given the gravity of the situation, can we contact our governments about this before we come to a decision?" Dr. Weir asked.

"Yes, of course. There are several subspace transmitters in the lobby." Minos answered.

* * *

Almost everybody left the conference room for the lobby. Only Minos and the Asgard stayed behind.

"Odin, have you no need to contact the High council regarding your decision?" Minos asked curiously.

"I have no need to. The Asgard will protect as many planets as necessary, under condition that it is the most ethically correct thing to do in this situation. We will protect as much planets as you need, given that you have saved our race from certain destruction."

"That's nice. I had hoped for a lot of the ships to be upgraded with Asgard technology, or Ancient if necessary."

"Do you still have access to the Gate-builders technology?" Oding asked.

"Until a certain extent, yes. I wasn't really the best student in my time, but I occasionally paid attention to the teachers. I still know some things about building ships and weapons. Those things interested me back then too, you know. I had been unable to use these technologies until now because the Others would probably have blocked my attempts."

"What makes you think they have changed their thoughts about the subject?" Odin inquired.

"Partially the fact that they asked me for help, and partially because some of them are indirectly responsible for this situation. If they had acted sooner, or if they had acted at all, we wouldn't be in this situation."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, it was the government led by the Others that decided to flee from the old home galaxy and never look back. If they had looked back, and if they had paid any attention to the situations there, then there probably was little reason to war."

"This situation indeed sounds very grave. Have you yourself not thought about acting sooner?"

" I have thought about that, but I couldn't. The others wouldn't let me. It was only when Gannos Lal managed to persuade enough of them that I received permission to go to their galaxy and check things out."

"What are you planning to do with the Goa'uld in this situation?" Odin asked.

"I have my plans. I'll announce them a little later, when everybody has discussed things with their governments and returned here."

"I take it you are following the conversations closely?"

"Yep. So far, so good. Those subspace-transmitters really are handy in times like this."

"Are those subspace-transmitters Ancient in origin?"

"Yes. I designed and built them myself, so they are Ancient. But they're not using any 'ascended'-technologies, so the Others can hardly complain."

"Why can they hinder your attempts to build weapons then? These technologies are not ascended-based, as far as I know."

"Yeah, but they're still weapons. And the Others don't like weapons. Plus they don't have any trouble interfering with one of their own, even if he's not ascended."

"Why did you choose not to ascend?"

"Well, as far as I'm concerned there wasn't really a choice. Living on a higher plane of existence may sound interesting, just like having access to all the knowledge in the universe, but it's boring. You can't actually do anything fun up there. All business and no fun. The Others start complaining as soon as you make just one little prank so the only things you can do are watch and talk. And I've never been good at either of them."

"Many humans in this galaxy are on quests leading to Ascension, though only a few have succeeded. Have you ever had to battle the urge to help them?"

"No, not really. I know from experience that the quest itself is more fun that the actual solution. Of course there have been individuals that came here for help, but I merely gave hints, just like the Others do."

"Have you acted if you thought there would be problems for this galaxy? Problems like Anubis, the half-ascended Goa'uld?"

"If they were serious enough, yes, but not many are. I have remained reasonably low-profiled over the course of the last millennia. But with threats like Anubis I did choose sides for the free humans of this galaxy."

"Since Anubis has returned to this plane of existence, are you going to act against him before the great war starts?"

"Most likely, yes. Though I won't risk plunging the galaxy into an all-out war just before the Ori attack, so I will only go myself. I'll try not to involve any other races into the conflict with Anubis. And, of course, i'll try and use his resources against the Ori too."


	29. Chapter 29

A/N: Sorry for the little late update. This part was a bitch to write. May have used well-known stories in this one. I hope you like it! I'm thinking about skipping the rest of the conference, or at least end it quickly, to come to the storyline I had in mind when I started writing this.

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 29 – The conference part 3

* * *

Has everyone finished conferring with their governments?" Minos asked to the people in the lobby that had just finished talking through the subspace transmitters.

"We have." Sounded from everybody.

"All-right. Let's share the results then." Minos said as he returned to the conference table. Everyone followed him and sat down in their respective chairs.

"Let's start to my left. Anteaur and Lya, how many planets can you defend?"

"We have conferred with our government, and after an argument with several very high-placed friends of you, we have conceded to open up travel to our home planet Gaia, and our long-time colony Ouranos." Anteaur said.

"Thank you." Minos said with a small grin after hearing the comment about his high-place friends. "now, High Councillor Garshaw, which planets can the Tok'ra defend from outside attacks?"

"The Tok'ra can defend the planets of Terosh, Kerak and Oranna. That last one is our new base, and the other two planets are our colonies. Infrastructure should not be a problem."

"Thank you." Minos said. "Ambassador Gren, which planet in you territory is suitable for handling large amounts of refugees?"

"We have decided that these times require Oannes to open up. The refugees can stay on the continents, but goods will be sent from the cities under the ocean."

"Thank you." Minos said with a short nod. "Ambassador Varta, which planet have to Galarans selected?"

"We decided that there is enough space on Galara to handle a large amount of refugees. Infrastructure should not pose any problem at all if we start preparing in time."

"Thank you." Minos repeated himself. "Now Dr. Weir, which planets have the Tau'ri decided that are suitable for handling large amounts of refugees?"

"We have conferred with our government and decided that the situation demands us to open up the Alpha, Beta and Gamma sites. We have bases on each one of those planets, but very little infrastructure yet."

"Thank you. I'm certain we can help each other with building infrastructure and assembling supplies." Minos said. "And now, High Councillor Odin, what planets have the Asgard decided are capable of handling refugees?"

"There are many planets under the protection of the Asgard already, but only a are few suitable for handling the many refugees while they are at the same time defendable from outside attacks. Those planets are Cimmeria, the double planets of Skinfaxi and Hrimfaxi, Vanaheim and the double planets of Elfheim and Jotunheim."

"Thank you." Minos said.

* * *

"We now have a total of twenty planets to receive all the refugees. Let's see what their positions are in space now, shall we?" Minos spoke as he raised both his hands in the air.

Suddenly, a small though persistent and loud tremble started. A medium-sized object looking like a small table with an orb on top rose from the floor.

"This," Minos spoke as the orb lit up, "Is a map from the galaxy. The red dots are the planets I know the locations of. Can you please point the locations of the Alpha, beta and gamma sites, Terosh, Kerak and Ouranos for me?"

"I can." Anteaur spoke as an additional dot, very close to another dot that was probably Gaia, turned red.

"I will point them." Selmak spoke as they rose and pointed to two locations in space, relatively close to each other.

"I don't know the exact location of them. Carter?" O'Neill said.

"No, sir, sorry. But I know the addresses."

"That's good enough for me." Minos said as a small hologram appeared before Carter, consisting of all the constellations.

She dialled them in and Minos calculated their locations in the map of the galaxy.

* * *

"Hmm. This is quite easily defendable by ship." Minos commented. "Most of the planets are relatively close together in twosomes or threesomes, so we won't have to distribute all the ships throughout the galaxy. I reckon there are fourteen separate parts, so we probably have to split the fleet into that many parts. Uhm..." Minos had a short pause as he asked himself what was next.

"Oh, yeah. How many ships capable of hyperspace-travel can you send out to defend the planets?"

* * *

"The Nox do not and will not build ships of war. We have relied on the Astria Porta for our travels and we will continue to do so. Satellites for defence may be a necessary evil, but ships of war are not." Lya spoke.

"I understand." Minos spoke. "High Councillor Garshaw, how many space-worthy ships can you send to aid the planets?"

"It is not the way of the Tok'ra to use many ships of war. We have relied on stealth and coercion rather than brute force. Because of that, we have only little to offer in ships. Only a few Al'Kesh bombers and several scout ships. I do not know any exact numbers."

"Hm-hm." Minos said in approval. "Ambassador Varta, how many ships can Galara offer?"

"I fear not much. We have only recently learned that such things were possible, so we cannot offer any ships as of yet. Should the technology be available to us, I think we can produce several of them in relatively short time."

"Okay." Minos said. "Ambassador Gren, have you any ships available for defence?"

"We have not. It is not the way of the Oannes to build spaceships suited for war." Gren said shortly.

"Uh-huh. I understand." Minos said. "Doctor Weir, have the Tau'ri got any space-worthy ships?"

"I'm afraid we only have the one Ha'tak you helped us steal from Anubis. We are learning how it works as we speak and we can construct a fair amount of ships given the right time and resources." Dr. Weir spoke.

"OK. High-councillor Odin, can you offer any help in ship-related business?"

"I can, though not as much as I had liked. The war with the Replicators is now over, but they still have destroyed most of our fleet. Only the ships we had in the final battle are left. We have currently eight O'Neill class warships, ten Bilskirnir class warships, eight chariots and five cruisers left, along with several smaller science-vessels and civilian vessels."

"Thank you." Minos said, pleased that he finally had some numbers. "OK, I can add a lot to that. I have thirty Ha'taks prepared, as well as a small sixty Al'kesh and of course the fighters that came with them when I robbed them from the Goa'uld. And, of course, I have my own battleship, the Ruin."

* * *

"Has the Horseman risen again?" Thor exclaimed in fear.

"Not yet. But the time may be there soon." Minos said with an amused grin as he saw the Asgard and Nox move away from him in fear.

"Who's the rider?" Dr. Weir asked.

"He is one of the horsemen that sign the coming of the apocalypse. I believe I planted those myths on every planet I've been to. Have you any such tales, Ambassador Varta?"

"I believe we have. One of the older texts describes a number of horseman that ride through the lands and cause death and destruction. I take it that legend is based on you?"

"Loosely."

"What do you mean 'loosely'?" Daniel asked.

"Well, it was true that me and a few others rode through the lands, but causing death and destruction goes a bit far... Ok, we occasionally had some pranks on some people that weren't really nice, but not really death and destruction."

* * *

"If I remember correctly, you burned a whole planet in that time." As mysterious voice said, coming from the other end of the table. A white light appeared and then a woman was sitting in the chair opposing Minos. Black hair, black eyes but a pale skin.

"Hello, Gannos." Minos said. "How nice of you to finally join us."

"Gannos Lal. It has been a long time." Odin spoke.

"A long time indeed." Anteaur added.

"For the ones that do not know me, I am Gannos Lal. I am often known as Morgan le Fay in this galaxy. I came here to tell dear Minos that the time is not right for the Horseman to ride again."

"It's always work and never fun with you, isn't it?" Minos asked.

"You burned down a whole planet the last time the Horseman rode in this galaxy. I'd say that your definition of fun is a bit _disturbing, _to say the least."

"That was not my definition of fun either. That was a prank gone bad, then it went to worse and it ended in the worst. But you do remember that most of us almost died saving every living creature on the whole planet from the fire. And we paid dearly for it afterwards."

* * *

"What exactly happened?" O'Neill asked.

"My friends, the other three riders, and me held a prank involving a small fire demon. But something went wrong in the machine we used, so the whole fire hell came crashing through. Even with the four of us we couldn't stop the fiery demons from flowing through. We saved every thing we could find, sending it through the Stargate to another planet. Then we sealed the planet off from the Stargate network. We'd built a machine capable of making a gate to another dimension or universe, which you could actually dial. We learned swiftly that there was a dimension filled almost exclusively with fire, fiery creatures and monsters of your worst nightmares. We had captured several of the smaller monsters before without any trouble.

Several weeks after we had only barely escaped the disaster, we arrived at the very same planet by ship. It had turned into a molten ball of lava and fire, heat so intense it could melt metal. We prepared ourselves for the final battle, taking each and every precaution we could think off. We flew down to the planet, and we battled. The battle raged for many days, each one of us taking turns in slaughtering the oncoming armies of fiery monsters that poured through the hole we had created from another universe.

After multiple days of fighting, we encountered a massive demon. We had almost managed to break the connection linking our two universes, but it was too late. Three of the horsemen fell because of the demon. I was the only one who survived, though barely.

"Could the other Ancients not help?" Odin asked.

"They certainly could, but they didn't want to _interfere _with our business. Besides, their powers were not really effective against the powers of that demon."

"What happened with the demon?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, he was defeated, but his armies still reigned over the planet. After I had healed, I was sent back to the planet to defeat each and every one of the demons and destroy the machine that had caused it."

"Were you punished because of it?" Daniel asked.

"Yes. Though not as cruel or painful as the Goa'uld usually punish their subjects, I was punished too. They locked me in this body forever, stopping my aging process. I can't ascend, they blocked that option and I am limited in my actions. Plus I'm in their service until, like, infinity."

* * *

"So you bettered your life and became a servant of the Others." Gannos spoke.

"No, I just became a servant of the Others. And I didn't do any pranks or tricks for a long time."

"Except for a few times when you disliked people." Gannos added.

"Ok, maybe a few times, but none as serious or big, or dangerous for that matter, as the one with the fire demons."

"What happened to the planet after you defeated all the demons there?" Selmak asked.

"It was still hot, so I had to cool it faster, as another part of my punishment. The landscape was kind of destroyed, so I had to replant forests and all, take animals through the gate once the planet had an atmosphere again, and eventually humans started living there again."

* * *

"Why horsemen?" Daniel asked.

"Think of it as the Ancient equivalent of a child taking a stick and saying it's a horse. But then an touchable, though not real, horse. The humans saw 'real' horses and we could ride them just as well. Even better, because they didn't get tired or needed to eat."

"So the four horsemen were four Ancient children?" Daniel asked.

"Yes, we were." Minos said.


	30. Chapter 30

A/N: I sort of wrote this in one go. I'm drifting away from the storyline I had thought of for this fic, but I hope you don't mind...

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 30 – The Dream

* * *

The conference came to an end after multiple hours of talking. Treaties were spoken and forged, decisions were made and Minos made sure everyone got their part. But after the long negotiations where everybody was bored out of their skulls, the talking was finally over. After everybody had returned to their planets, Minos sensed that Gannos was still there.

"Have you decided to stay?" Minos asked.

"I am only making sure you are doing the right things" Gannos answered.

"You seemed a whole less concerned about that when you sent me to spy on the Ori."

"That was not an assignment coming from me, it came directly from the Others."

"So this is all your will?"

"In a way, yes. But part of it is solely your doing."

"Tell me, how am I doing so far?"

"You acted differently than expected."

"That I'm still able to surprise you with my doings. You have known me for so long that I thought you learned everything about me a long time ago."

"I had learned everything about you, but you have changed. Or you haven't changed at all, depending on your point of view."

"Was it a change for the good of for the worse?"

"That is also a matter of views. From the viewpoint of the Others, your behaviour has certainly changed to something better after the accident with the fire demon, but..."

"It wasn't an accident." Minos interrupted.

"It wasn't?"

"It was a total and complete disaster. We nearly destroyed a whole planet, killing every living thing on it. Yea, certainly, we did save everything we could, but still. That whole thing never should have happened. Whole forests could have lived, animals could have been saved, if only we hadn't been so stupid to build that machine."

"You did everything at that time possible to save the planet, Minos. It is not necessary to hurt yourself by looping around in a maelstrom of your mind, especially not now. When this is over, there will be time."

"'When' should be replaced by 'if'. If this is over, there will be time. If there is anything of the two galaxies left after the war."

"You do not have to fight the war on your own, Minos, even though I cannot help you. There are other allies that will play a major role. The Asgard for example. This will be undoubtedly place a heavy strain on their capabilities, but they will do anything necessary and possible within ethical limits to help you. The Nox may not have any ships, but they will heal any injuries they find and they will teach you their ways."

"Their ways are not compatible with my ways, I found that out long ago."

"And the other allies you have chosen are good of heart. They will help in the war, Minos. Don't forget that."

"I just don't know what is best to do now. I don't like waiting for the Ori to attack."

"You were always impatient, Minos. But there is one thing you could do at this moment that needs to be done. You will need the help of the Goa'uld, Minos, especially now."

"Do I have to?"

"You may not be able to forgive them, but you still can hold a temporary seize-fire with them."

"I still don't like the whole plan of it."

"I know, Minos. I know what happened all those centuries ago between you and the Goa'uld, I know what they did to you, but I also know there are those amongst them that would prove valuable allies against the Ori."

"I especially don't like Anubis." Minos said, seemingly unfazed by Gannos' words.

"There are other Goa'uld besides Anubis that are certainly more _...honourable._"

"So you won't mind me kicking his ass halfway through the galaxy then?"

"I you want to say it that bluntly, then no, I won't interfere if not forced by either you or the Others."

"Good. That gives me a few options to kill the time with."

"I have seen how you stole the Ha'taks from Anubis. The Others were not amused by your actions, but I was."

"Hard to picture any of the Others showing emotions."

"Do not underestimate their emotions, Minos. They most certainly have them, but they are locked away deep inside, to prevent them from interfering with their decisions."

"What good is having them then? It's like having a door without a wall in which it is built. Completely pointless, other than to talk about. And I haven't heard any of them talking about their emotions since I was a very little kid."

"It is true that ones Ascension renders their emotions less important, but it does not render them worthless."

"What is your goal here, Gannos?"

"I came here to make sure that everything went as necessary. The alliance must stand to stop the forces of the Ori, otherwise all will be lost."

"I take it you have taken the necessary actions for us to reach a solution against the Ori?"

"You will learn that in time, Minos. Now rest. Today was a long day."

"Don't ...do...that...dammit..." Minos said as Gannos let him fall into a deep sleep. He had hated it every time an Ascended being did that to him. Which was surprisingly often, especially in comparison to normal humans in the galaxy.

"I did what was necessary, Minos. Now sleep well, and dream." Gannos said as she faded away.

* * *

Minos looked upwards. The large group of people around him all flocked towards one large building in the city he was in. The people looked like they came straight out of the Middle ages. Ragged clothes, poor men and women from all ages walked slowly, in a zombie-like trance, towards the large building. Minos decided not to stand out by stopping. He took the same zombie-like pace and marched towards the building.

On his way to the building he glanced to the side. Medieval houses, just like the ones often seen in the Milky Way. These ones were almost exactly the same. Almost. Minos couldn't pinpoint what was wrong with the buildings, but something looked ... off, so to speak. He kept looking around. There were guards spread around over certain distances alongside the large street he was walking in.

The guards were all men, quite large in comparison to the other people in the streets. They were from all ages, except for the really young or old. There were no ones of those ages to be found. The guards had silver-grey coloured armour, looking pretty heavy, and they held long staff weapons. The staffs were different from the ones in the Milky Way. These ones were more slender and they ended in a small fork. Minos could only guess that they served the same function as their Milky Way counterparts.

Minos decided he wasn't going to risk being discovered until he knew more about where he was and what his purpose was. Or at least until there was an easy opening for him to move from the parade unnoticed.

When the steady stream of people had reached nearer to the large, black-coloured building in what Minos guessed was the centre of the large city, such an opening appeared. One guard stood around a corner, the other one was busy fixing his armour. Minos grabbed his chance and launched himself with almost superhuman speed into one of the alleyways that bordered the large street. He rendered himself near invisible by staying to the side, in the shadow of the building.

* * *

When he'd reached a relatively safe distance from the group, he stopped. He could hear a voice relatively far away, although that could have been because he stood between two tall buildings. He decided to take his chances by climbing on top of them. Using his superior agility, reflexes and power he climbed the pretty large building in under a minute. He was at least ten metres above the street level, on an open space of rooftops. Many buildings in the city had the same height, but there were enough hiding places Minos could use.

Minos wanted to check out from where the voices came, which he could now hear louder. He took a comfortable pace, which was way faster that average humans, over the rooftops towards the source of the sound. After a few minutes of jumping over alleys and streets he reached an enormous open square. He'd dropped himself in a reflex not to be seen by the ones on the square. He peeked over the edge of the rooftop, hiding behind a half-broken chimney.

On the enormous square several metres below Minos, thousands of people were lying, sitting or standing on the ground. On the far end of the square, just in front of the very large black building, was a stage. On the stage were several men, carrying some kind of weird staffs, different than the ones he had seen. They were ugly, their faces riddled with cysts and scars, their skin gray and their eyes blood-red. Minos could only barely see that from his position on the rooftop, even though he had focussed his eyes well beyond the normal human limit.

The middle man of the five on the stage spoke. He spoke in a language Minos could remember all too well. The man spoke in Ancient.

* * *

"We are here, today, to pray for our almighty gods, the Ori." The man said.

"We must pray and repent our sins so that our soldiers, our husbands and sons, will return safely from their quest to eradicate the infidels." The man reverted to English.

Minos was surprised by the statement. Not surprised enough to call it totally shocked, but still surprised. He had expected the Ori to come with something bigger than just soldiers. He'd expected weapons of mass destruction deployed on every world, but it seemed like they wouldn't do that.

Suddenly, Minos' still focussed eyes picked up movement near the stage. Four men were crawling slowly underneath the stage. The men on the stage didn't notice it because they couldn't see that low from where they were standing. The guards on duty also did not notice, because they had been distracted by questions from, apparently, a friend of the men underneath the stage.

Minos was wondering where this was going. He had figured this was a dream by now, but he wasn't sure what the purpose of this dream was. Every dream had a purpose, whether to deliver a message, to change ideas or to frighten you. That was, of course, only every dream you could remember having. Other dreams were just sparkles of fantasy, created by their owner's minds.

Minos was about to move from his slightly uncomfortable position on the rooftop when a large explosion rocked the stage. Apparently, the men that had crawled underneath it had positioned explosives on the wooden floorboards that formed the stage.

Suddenly, a large explosion rocked the stage, blasting the five men standing on it away. While the guards were still baffled by the sudden outburst of sound and movement, several figures jumped onto the stage, running towards the men lying flat on the ground, trying to grab their staffs and wrestling them.

"We will never bow for the will of the Ori!" One of the men screamed.

"The Ori are fake gods, not worthy of our beliefs." Another one yelled.

The five men that were on the stage had managed to overpower the people that had jumped them after the explosions. The guards on and around the stage had also intervened, driving spectators away from the stage.

* * *

Thirty seconds later, all the men that had tried to stop the servants of the Ori were lying face-down on the stage. Multiple guards were observing them. One of the ugly men spoke.

"These infidels are trying to stop the war. They are doing that by killing our soldiers. These people will kill your husbands and sons if necessary. They must be eliminated, for they are a danger to our cause. Behold now, the power of the Ori!"

All the men that were lying face-down on the stage suddenly erupted in flames. Screaming and crying they tried to douse the flames, but to no avail. Only much too long later the movements stopped and the flames died down, having devoured the men that conspired to overthrow the servants of the Ori.

"Hallowed are the Ori!"


	31. Chapter 31

A/N: This chapter was a breeze to write. I hope you like it.

* * *

Chapter 31 – The Village

* * *

Minos woke up with a shock. He sat upright and tried to comprehend what had happened to him. He remembered that Gannos had put him in a dream, and he could still remember the dream, but what was it about, and who were those men?

It was fairly obvious that the ugly men on stage were devout servants of the Ori and that they had both the guards and the general population under control, but who where the ones that had planted the bomb? If there was a resistance against the Ori in their home galaxy, maybe he could use that in the war. He'd always liked stealth just as much as using excessive violence on his enemies, but it had been a long time since he fought of an enemy as powerful as the Ori.

Minos decided that he'd check it out later. The conference, and of course the dream afterwards too, had drained his energy reserves pretty much. He needed to eat, soon. He'd often say that his metabolism was in 'permanent overdrive' mode, since he always had energy to spare, but it required food. 'Solid food and no sugar!' had been the message all those years ago, and he still pretty much obeyed that rule. When it suited him, of course.

* * *

He returned from the Grand Hall to his palace, walking a comfortable pace through the city. The Grand Hall had been a good idea to build. Especially the subspace beacons and the holographic map of the galaxy had come in handy. He'd had to have drawn a map of the galaxy if the conference was held in the palace. Besides, the palace would have been way too warm for everyones liking. It could get bloody hot there sometimes. Especially the races not used to the desert-like conditions that ruled over Avalon had benefited from the climate control. The Nox were more used to a tropical climate, and the Ohnes were of course used to an aquatic climate. Minos, on the other hand, was so used to these conditions he didn't even sense them. He hated cold, even though he had plenty of defences against it. He continued musing on the way to the palace.

Two hours later, Minos was refreshed and walked towards the gate. It was evening already in Avalon, and he had no idea where to go besides to the gate. He'd see it from there. He had prepared himself for almost everything. He had both Excalibur and Durandal tucked away, as well as multiple other weapons and, of course, several packages of sugar.

He arrived at the gate a few minutes after he had left his palace. If only he knew where to go. Minos stood in front of the DHD, thinking about where to go. Suddenly he pressed some buttons, eight to be precise. Minos was sure he didn't know the address, but it seemed awfully familiar to him. It wasn't the one he'd gone to when he had spied on the Ori because Gannos had made sure all memories of those locations were erased.

Minos shrugged any doubts he had off, off towards the back of his mind. He suddenly felt the need to make haste. He ran towards the gate, the eternally liquid puddle of blue, and jumped through.

* * *

When he appeared on the other side of the Stargate in the Ori galaxy after a journey that lasted slightly longer than he used to, Minos switched into stealth mode. He ducked down in a reflex, observing for ambushes in the proximity of the gate. It was night on the planet he had landed on, so someone most likely had heard his coming. To his left was a pretty dense wood, seemingly, and to his right was an pretty much open piece of land, save for some trees here and there, and of course the bushes that covered the ground.

Minos sprinted towards the wood for it offered the best chance of protection against unwanted observers. The ground in the forest was not covered by bushes, and the trees were pretty big but placed relatively far from each other, so there was little protection on the ground. However, the trees were carrying leaf and it was pretty thick. Using his agility Minos climbed in the tree, disappearing between thick layers of leaves and branches.

Tree climbing had always been one of Minos' favourite activities. He'd been very good at it, for one, and it was a useful skill when you were spying. Of course, Minos' low weight and fit condition also helped with him being able to reach places others couldn't come.

When Minos had ascertained himself that no one was coming to check out the gate after fifteen minutes, he was ready to move. He'd detected lights on the far side of the open field that was directly in front of him, so he guessed that there was a village situated there.

He made his move, he jumped out of the tree he was hiding in, creating as little noise as possible. He stayed low when he sprinted over the open path in front of the Stargate and made a final jump to a thick layer of bushes. The firm and strong bushes, covered by thick leaves and shadows, quickly hid his relatively small form.

There was still quite a distance for him to go, but the bushes were high enough to almost walk upright. Minos stood up and made his way towards the village under cover of night and shadow.

* * *

He had reached the village one hour later, but it wasn't starting to light up yet. He figured that most of the village would be asleep now, so it would be a perfect opportunity for him to check out the village unnoticed. He would just have to be very quiet.

He came close to the outer houses of the village. They were made of stone, with wooden roofs. The wooden roofs would make it harder for him to go unheard around the village, but it would still be possible. He would just have to try harder.

It wasn't necessary just yet to use the roofs as a means to go around unseen, so Minos chose the easy option –walking. He hid in shadows for most of the journey to the centre of the village, just in case someone saw him. If he would be detected it could be disastrous. The villagers here would probably bring him to one of the local servants of the Ori, and they would take him to... well, they'd probably torture and execute him. That was not a pleasant option, so Minos chose to remain unseen.

He neared the centre of the village, a pretty large open square with some kind of temple on one end and a large, flat surface in the middle. He didn't trust it completely, so Minos climbed up to one of the roofs of the houses made entirely from stone. It certainly wasn't hard for him, but he had to made sure he couldn't be heard or seen.

He had only just reached the top of the roof when he saw a patrol of five guards marching over the square. They were carrying the same staff weapons as the guards in his dream, though these could probably hurt him more.

The patrol remained on the square, probably guarding it against intruders like Minos. It would severely limit his movement options. Minos decided it was best to wait. The house lay too secluded from the other ones to make the jump without causing any noise at all. He could have made the jump easily enough, but it would cause enough noise to awaken the ones who owned the house.

* * *

After one hour had passed, Minos was severely bored. He'd counted the stars he could see with the naked eye (which were 58.910), he'd fantasised about everything he could think of and he had thought of nine-hundred and twelve ways to kill the guards on the square. But he was still bored, and only approximately one hour had passed. It was starting to become lighter, but it would still be at least one hour before people would start waking up.

Suddenly, Minos heard soft, mumbled voices coming from inside the house he was lying on.

* * *

"Shht. Quiet. If you make any more noise the priors guards will come. You endanger the entire operation."

"It is night, Selus. The guards won't hear us. They are just stupid people that do nothing else than follow the words of the Priors. We are smarter than them."

"Don't speak like that, Tamara. We may believe different, better, things than they do but they are with far more people and they still have the technology."

"You mean the technology they stole from the Alterans, Selus. They didn't invent it themselves."

* * *

These people sounded like they would be part of the so-called resistance. They sounded like they hated the guts of everything that followed the word of the Ori. And they mentioned the Alterans. On Minos' previous trip to this galaxy he hadn't seen one reference made to his ancestors, not even indirectly. And these people just mentioned them, and they said the Ori stole their technology. If these people were indeed what Minos suspected them, they could prove a valuable ally in the battle against the Ori. Something told him to take the risk, and show himself to these people.

Minos silently climbed down from the roof, still under cover of the night, and looked for a window. He needed to hang upside-down from the roof to be able to access the window. He made a small knock on the window. The hushed voices immediately stopped. Minos knocked again.

"Who is there?" the male voice asked.

"A friend." Minos answered.

"How do we know we can trust you?" the female asked.

"The fact that I haven't smashed in your window yet."

"What do you want us to do?" the male asked.

"Open up this window. I'm hanging upside down from your roof, and that isn't the most comfortable position I can think of."

The window swung open, luckily without a sound. Minos made half a flip while holding on to the edge of the roof, flew silently through the open window and landed on the ground without a sound.

* * *

"Hi." Minos said softly after a short pause in which he had observed the two people in front of him. One was a woman, blonde hair, slender figure and average height for as far as Minos could tell. The other was a man, brown hair, slightly shorter than average. They both wore the same style robes, which looked like they came directly from the middle ages on Earth. Minos could still remember those times, he had been on Earth during them often. He had disliked the fashion in those days, and he still did.

"Hi. Who are you?" The man asked.

"I'm Minos. I heard your conversation about the Alterans and the Ori, and I agree with you. The Ori are a bunch of blood-sucking, moronic, idiotic, dickheads."

"That is ...unexpected." The woman said. "But who exactly are you and why do you despise the Ori so much as we do?"

"As I said, I'm Minos. I'm one of the archenemies of the Ori. I'm way older than I look, and my hate against them goes deeper than almost anything."

"Are you one of the unbelievers of which there are rumours in the book of Origin?" the man asked.

"I haven't read it, and I'm not going to either. But if the unbelievers in the book of Origin were 'defeated' by the Ori a very long time ago, then yes, I am one of them."

"Tamara, I think we must warn the Resistance. We have found a solution." The man said.


	32. Chapter 32

A/N: Another talking chapter. I'll try to make the next two ones a bit more action-filled, but I can't promise anything. Yet.

Reviews are Welcome!

* * *

Chapter 32 – The Planning

* * *

"So if I understand you correctly you are the underground resistance against the Ori?" Minos asked Selus, the man. They had called for an emergency meeting with the other members of the resistance. Selus had led Minos and Tamara downstairs in his house, and they had entered a tunnel. Although they had blindfolded Minos as a safety precaution he still knew exactly where he was and where he was going. Sometimes it came in handy to be an Ancient.

"We are. There have long been rumours of our ancestors, the Alterans. The Ori, well, the Priors actually, try to destroy every hint of the existence of the Alterans. But we have found some ruins on this planet, long lost pieces of technology and other things."

"What kind of technology have you found?" Minos asked.

"Most of it we haven't figured out yet, but there aren't any weapons. We are not that kind of resistance. We only want to research and investigate our own history." Selus asked.

"Ssst! Selus, we must not reveal too much! What if he is a spy?" Tamara asked.

"Ok, my love. I'll tell him no more until we've reached the others."

* * *

Minos asked no more questions for the remainder of the trip. He could feel that they were still walking through the tunnel, a tunnel dug out of the soil roughly, with only supports every so-many metres. He liked this kind of unorganised tunnel. It had a sense of adventure.

After a five minute walk they had neared the end of the tunnel. At least, Minos thought it was the end. They were moving slightly upwards, but the tunnel didn't became steep enough to pose a problem.

By the time Minos could feel a soft breeze on his skin and hear the soft voices of others, he figured they were where they needed to be.

* * *

"Selus, Tamara, why have you called for this unexpected meeting?" a voice asked.

"Tarus, we may have found our saviour. He claims he is one of the 'unbelievers' the older books of Origin speak about." Selus answered.

"How can we know for certain, Selus? You might have just as well taken a spy to this meeting." Tarus said.

"Do not worry, Tarus. We have blindfolded him the whole way, and he knows only us."

"Hate to interrupt you, but you've just told me your name too, Tarus. And the blindfold trick doesn't work if the one you try to use it on is an Ancient."

"An Ancient? We have never heard of a creature of such sorts." Tarus spoke.

"It was the name my people gave themselves when they fled from this galaxy a long time ago."

"Your people fled from this galaxy? The book of Origin says all the unbelievers were defeated."

"We weren't. The Ori might have lied to you. Where do you think they are preparing to war against now?"

"The ... unbelievers?"

"Exactly. Not the same ones that fled from here so long ago, but their descendants."

"Are you one of their descendants, then?"

"No, I'm one of the unbelievers themselves. Though I was born long after my people fled from this galaxy."

"Can you prove that?"

"What would you need me to do to prove it?"

* * *

"If you are one of the unbelievers, then you must be familiar with their technology, is that correct?"

"I suppose so, although there has been a long time between my people leaving this galaxy and me being born, so there might be a few start-up problems. But I'm fairly sure I can activate every piece of technology."

"Activate? We did not know the unbelievers technology needed activation. That might explain why we have not been able to use it."

"Most of the devices require activation by one of my race, or one of similar build to start up. But after it's been activated, pretty much everybody can use it."

"Can you help us activate some things?"

"Yes, I most probably can but you'll need to remove this blindfold."

"Very well, then."

The blindfold was removed, and Minos could see who he had been talking to the whole time. Tarus was an older man, grey hair on the sides but bald in the middle. He wore the same style robes as Selus and Tamara did.

"Can you activate this device?" Tarus asked him after he'd handed Minos a small stone.

"I'm afraid this is not a device I'm able to activate." Minos answered.

"Then what is it?"

"It's part of a communications device, it does not need activation by one of my race. There are multiple of these stones in a larger, cylindrical object. That object connects to another one, and direct communication is possible through these stones."

"We have found one such a cylindrical object. It is over here." Tarus gestured for Minos to follow him.

* * *

"That's not the object I meant. This is a different one. I can show you how this one works, though."

"Please do so."

Minos stepped forward to the device and grabbed it with both hands. From the top of the device came a small sphere, originating from inside the device. The sphere lit up and a massive hologram appeared, filling the biggest part of the room they were in.

"Wow. What is it?" Tarus asked.

"This is a map of this galaxy, made by my ancestors a seriously long time ago. I think it's still mostly correct, though there may have been some miscalculations in the movements of the stars."

"The stars move?"

"Yes, but you'd need to observe them for thousands of years to see the difference. It has been millions of years since this device was created, so the map may be a little outdated."

"This is all new to me! We have know that there were other worlds out there, we trade with them through the Astria Porta, but normal people only rarely venture to them. We did not know they had a location on the sky."

"Well, the planets you know are all orbiting one of the stars here. There may be multiple planets around one star, but there generally is only one habitable by humans. I'll show you."

* * *

Minos lifted his arm, pointed to one of the stars in the hologram and focussed. The hologram moved, centred itself around the star and zoomed in. The star became a small sphere in the middle of the hologram, and there were multiple other spheres around it.

"This is your star system, Tarus. The star you see is the sun in your skies. The planet you are now on is the second from the star."

"And the other ones are the Irregulars, then."

"Irregulars?"

"We have observed the skies quite some time and we have noticed that there are multiple dots of light that move faster than other stars."

"Ah, the planets. They are the other worlds you have visited, though the other planets in this system are most likely uninhabitable."

"How do you know all this? You cannot be old enough to have learned this much about everything."

"I'm older than I look. I'm about one million years old, Tarus."

"One million years? Impossible! No one has ever been that old!"

"I'm not a normal human, Tarus. I am one of the unbelievers, though we call ourselves the Ancients, or Gate-builders nowadays."

"Even still, If you were a million years old, why do you look so young. In our eyes you are no more than a child of fifteen, sixteen summers old maybe."

"My race, the Ancients, do not age very quickly. And we are a very intelligent race, Tarus. We built the Astria Porta, the Stargates. The ancestors of my race, the Alterans, were the first race we know of that achieved space travel."

"Space travel? You mean travelling between the stars?"

"Yes, that kind of travelling. Why? Do you know of any races that have that ability here, in this galaxy?"

"No races besides the Ori and their servants the Priors. They have instructed many people on many different planets to construct ships and weapons for warfare. We have learned of that from our brothers and sisters in the resistance on many planets."

"What kind of ships are you talking about?"

"Well, we do not know exactly what type of ships they are, but they are big. News reached us a couple of days ago that the ships are as big as a mountain, made of white metal. They are constructed on land by many thousands of construction workers, all overseen by the priors and guarded by the army."

"Made of white metal? Do you know exactly what type of metal?"

"I am afraid I don't know that. On our planet, which is relatively sparsely habited in comparison to several other worlds, are only a few weapon factories. They are heavily guarded, though, and we have tried to infiltrate them, but we have failed so far. And what's worse, the guards that guard the factories are supplied directly from our own food supplies. They are with so many, and they are from different worlds too, that are own food supplies are dwindling. Of course, most people don't mind going hungry as long as it serves the Ori, but I don't want my son to die from hunger."

"What would happen if you managed to destroy the weapon factories?"

"I don't know. I think it depends on our own position. If it's clearly obvious we have done it, and we don't steal their weapons, they will come and slaughter us all. But if we somehow manage to steal their weapons, then we might be able to drive them off this planet. Of course, that would be no use given that they will return only a few days later with massive armies and destroy this whole planet."

"What kind of weapons do you have?"

"Nothing very sophisticated like the staffs from the Priors, or the sticks from the normal soldiers. We have crossbows, swords, spears and arrows of course, and only shields and metal armour for protection. But their weapons work with some kind of magical trickery, because they can shoot straight through our armour. And that while their armour is unharmed by our own weapons."

"It's not trickery, and neither magical. It's just very advanced technology, first created in the time of the Alterans and rebuilt and updated since then. I could show you how it works, but I'd be busy for days explaining everything."

* * *

"Can you help us strengthen our position, Minos? Without weapons that equal theirs, we are constantly in danger of being discovered and killed. And even with weapons, they are with far more people."

"I think I can figure out a few ways of helping you, but I'd need to know how many soldiers there are on their side, and how many are on your side."

"Well, there are several battalions of soldiers in the nearby area, so that would be around eight-hundred soldiers. And there is one prior covering our village and the few villages nearby, plus the weapon factory over the hill to the west."

"And on this side are?"

"Twenty-four people, mostly simple workmen like me."

"So it would seem like I can use one of the older tricks in the book."

"What book? And what tricks are you talking about?"

"It's a way of saying things. It's not about an actual book, but more about the old collections of wisdom and advice. The 'trick' I was referring to means that you rob your enemies in the middle of the night from their weapons, but at the same time strike at the heart of their might. In this case, it would mean steal the sticks from the soldiers, and from the Prior too if it's possible, and destroy the weapon factory at the same time."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

"By using another old method. Sleeping pills. I assume you have some kind of herb that is sleep-inducing?"

"No, not really. My people never relied on knowledge of herbs."

"Hmm. That's gonna complicate things. Do you have hammers?"

"Yeah, sure. Many of them, various weights and sizes."

"I think I can figure something out."

* * *

A/N: Anyone got any ideas what Minos can do with the hammers? I don't really have something planned yet (Ok, I have an idea but nothing is worked out as of yet).


	33. Chapter 33

A/N: Sorry for the late update. I was kinda busy writing another fic (I posted it at fictionpress, same writing name as here). I decided I'm gonna try to make the next 40 chapters or so action-packed, or at least I'll try to. I hope you like it!

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 33 – The Facility part 1

* * *

It was night. The usual harvest festivities were busy, as they were every year. Every man, woman and child were busy eating and having fun. Even most of the guards of the Ori, the soldiers from the army and everyone over the rank of officer was there. Even the people from the resistance were there, even though they knew what was happening several miles away.

Minos was nearing the weapon factory several miles outside the village. Well over a hundred soldiers were guarding the facility, but Minos could handle them. He had to, he couldn't destroy the facility otherwise.

He had made plans with Tarus. He had spied on the facility a few times and he had travelled to other villages to check out the guards there.

* * *

The weapon factory was situated on a hillside, surrounded by thick woods on all sides. Only a small path led towards the Stargate from the factory. Horse carts full of goods arrived there every day, and other carts full of weapons left it every day. It was quite a busy facility, especially for one that didn't look immensely large from the outside. There was a quite large building in the middle, surrounded by a lot of smaller buildings, open space and of course the outer wall.

There were around one hundred and fifty normal soldiers and one prior guarding the facility. Minos had seen the prior return to his quarters from his hiding place in the top of a large tree overlooking the facility. He was waiting until the night fell to make his move.

He had observed the patrolling routes around and through the facility. And he had prepared an escape route for both him and the weapons. His plan was to steal all the staff-weapons that the factory had made over the past few days. It should be around three cartloads full, around three-hundred weapons in total. He had modified one of the devices Tarus had found to transport three beacons away when it was activated.

The only part left now was infiltrating the facility, planting the beacons on the weapons and beaming them away on the first possible occasion. Minos guessed he'd need only a few minutes to do it. He had to wait for his chance to do it.

* * *

Just after one patrol had moved around the corner, but the other hadn't appeared just yet, Minos made his move. With superior agility he made it towards the end of the branch he had been sitting on for the past few hours, and jumped off. Well, more like he lunged off, spanning the multiple metres between the end of the branch and the inner square of the facility.

With the reflexes of a cat Minos landed several metres lower on the open space. He used the momentum from his jump to take a sprint towards one of the smaller buildings scattered around the open area.

He waited until the patrol of guards had passed. The patrol consisted of five men and one watchdog. Well, it looked like a dog but was a little bigger than the ones in Avalon Minos was used to. And it was certainly uglier, Minos decided as the group passed through a beam of light from the lamps.

* * *

When the patrol had passed Minos moved from his hiding place. He made a dash for the far wall of the open area that formed part of the factory itself. He jumped up to grab the railing of the path that was on top of the wall, a small four metres higher. Minos made the jump easily as he climbed on top of the wall.

The next patrol was coming in fast, so Minos burst a sprint towards the corner of the wall, out of the line of sight from the patrol. The stretch of wall ahead of Minos was long, straight and open. Well, open on one side. On the left side of the wall was a lower area with multiple buildings that looked like barracks of some sort, and to the right was the large bulk of the factory where Minos could hear machinery softly humming.

Using his super-sensitive eyes Minos spotted a door into the factory itself. He quickly ran towards it, opened it softly but swift at the same time and jumped in. He closed it just in time. The patrol that was coming from behind him was just about to turn the corner when Minos closed the door.

* * *

He was in a hallway now. It wasn't really big, but it was big enough for Minos. Minos was thankful for his small build often, mostly when he was away on scouting or stealth-like missions.

A small, black clad form sped through the long hallway deeper into the interior of the weapon facility. He listened every few steps or so, to check if no-one was coming. If someone had been coming he certainly was able to deal with them, but he'd rather not. He couldn't hold the image of him fighting for the good side if he was slaughtering everyone, now could he?

After having traversed a few dozen metres Minos heard voices. Of course there would be patrols on the inside of the building, Minos mentally cursed himself. He acted quickly and hid himself behind an section of the rough walls that was sticking out.

Now he was certainly glad he was thin-built too. If he had been only an inch bigger the patrol could have spotted him hiding behind the wall and the pipes running next to it, but they didn't. After he was certain they had left he continued on his way. Lucky for him no more patrols came.

* * *

When he had reached the end of the long hallway he silently observed the room in front of him. It was huge. At least thirty metres high, and reaching well over a hundred metres in both length and width, for as far as Minos could guess. It was lit, but only dimly. The machines had obviously been turned to standby, given that there was only very little noise coming from them, at least for machines their size.

Minos was situated on the end of one of many corridors that bordered the upper-level pathway in the large hall. It was about ten metres above the main floor. Minos could spot no cameras of some kind. Of course he wouldn't. The Ori were not as reliant on technology as the Ancients were. They'd rely on patrols of their loyal followers to protect what was important to them.

He could see a few patrols on the main floor from where he was sitting, but they didn't appear to be highly vigilant or watchful. Hopefully they wouldn't spot Minos if he moved.

* * *

After he had ascertained himself that there were no patrols on the higher pathway, Minos made his move. His leather shoes made no sound at all on the metal bridges that were connected to both the ceiling and the wall.

He'd moved carefully but fast over the upper bridges until he reached what seemed like a control room of some kind. He could probably find the blueprints there. Tarus hadn't been able to get his hands on them due to the watchfulness of the prior, but Minos was fairly certain that he could find them here.

If he could find the blueprints he at least would have an idea of where to go next. He knew how to enter the facility unseen, but he didn't know where the soldiers and factory workers kept the finished weapons. And if he was lucky he could even do some nosing around to find stuff that he could use in the war.

* * *

Minos sprinted towards the door of the control room using his speed and the shadows to remain undetected. He tried to open the door but found that it was locked. He got two small metal pins from one of his pockets and stuck them in the lock. A few seconds of wriggling the pins later the door clicked open softly.

Minos snuck inside, closing the door silently afterwards. There was some kind of window in the room that had a view on the main floor, but it was dark. Lucky for him Minos didn't need a lot of light to see everything in the room clearly. He had always preferred the darkness and shadows.

* * *

Minos looked around. There were a lot of shelves with stuff on it, and a few armoured cabinets. Minos figured the important things would be kept in the cabinets, so he started fiddling with the lock.

After a few seconds this lock too had fallen to the wriggliness of Minos' tools. He opened the cabinet and took a quick peek inside. A lot of big stacks of paper, but one small stack on top of the highest shelf stood out. Minos reached for it, but he was too small. Curse his damned size! By using the lower two shelves as stools Minos quickly managed to grab the stack.

* * *

Suddenly, he heard voices from outside. Patrolling guards were on their way. Minos closed the doors to the cabinet as silent and fast as he could, and searched for an hiding place. There was none obvious besides hiding behind the door. But that wasn't an option because Minos would be discovered as soon as anyone entered the room or looked through the window with a flashlight.

Minos took his chances with something he had seen in some movies the last time he'd been to Earth. He made a dash for the corner near the door and jumped upwards without making a sound. He stretched himself using both hand and feet to hold himself up against the ceiling.

* * *

Minos had detected the patrol just in time. Only seconds after he had hid himself against the ceiling several flashlights shone through the window. Minos held his breath and stopped moving completely.

After almost a minute the patrol went past the control room. Minos silently dropped himself like a cat and landed perfectly still on his feet. He looked at the papers he still had in his hand.

Most of them were descriptions, written in several different alphabets Minos didn't deem important enough to remember, but one stood out. It was a thin booklet that contained maps of the facility and the buildings surrounding it. He'd found the jackpot.

* * *

Minos looked at the tiny scribbles on the pieces of paper as he looked for rooms that sounded like there was something of use in there. He carefully memorised every storage room in the whole facility, just as the power room and the main hall in a few seconds. Another few seconds later the whole map of hallways had followed it. Luckily for Minos he had an almost eidetic memory for places and maps, otherwise he'd have a hard time remembering everything. The place was a maze.

Minos safely tucked the small booklet away into the clothes he was wearing and he hid the stack of papers in plain sight on the almost empty desk in the room. After he'd done that and made sure there were no patrols coming he opened the door and left.

* * *

Minos made his way over the higher level of pathways and stairs that circled the main hall. Multiple guards were on the main floor, standing guard between the machines, but none saw Minos.

After having counted three doors on his left side Minos entered the fourth. This was a main corridor that led towards an area filled with storage rooms of some kind. Some useful kind, Minos hoped.

After he'd ducked away and hidden himself in a corner for another patrol coming from one of the hallways that bordered the main hallway, Minos arrived at the first storage room. The door was locked, obviously, but Minos fingers were trained for this kind of activity and had the door open using the metal tools in no time.


	34. Chapter 34

A/N: Update is a little later than I had planned for because of my other fic on . Sorry for that. I hope you like it!

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 34 – The Facility part 2

* * *

Minos had opened the door to the storage room, jumped inside and closed the door as quickly as possible. He turned around, let his eyes adjust to the almost non-existent light in the room and observed his surroundings.

The storage room was almost twenty metres long for as far as Minos could tell, and at least ten metres wide. There were large racks and cabinets of all kinds and sizes stocked away randomly throughout the room.

He looked at the first rack. They appeared to be some kind of staff weapons, but they weren't finished. The things were long and straight, but they missed the concave form at the tip. Half-finished staff weapons are worthless, so Minos moved towards the next.

* * *

Another three racks with only non-finished staff weapons later Minos found something new. Armour. Body armour to be precise. But these ones too were not finished yet. From what he had heard the armour of the soldiers of the Ori army had some kind of force field around it, rendering it almost invulnerable to normal attacks. Of course, the force field was not powerful enough to stop something with enough force or speed behind it, but it still blocked all energy-based attacks.

Minos moved on. He quickly skipped the next three racks that contained more non-finished armour and tried to open the first cabinet. The doors wouldn't open, so Minos got his tools ready. A few seconds later he had unlocked it and he opened the door.

Oh yeah. These things he could use. Definitely.

* * *

Minos looked at the prize he had found before him. Shelves full of small explosive charges and their detonators were in front of him. He wasted no time in collecting a few. These things could always come in handy when you're infiltrating an enemy weapon factory in a distant galaxy without supply depot.

After the small explosive charges Minos hadn't found anything of great interest in the room. He listened for a patrol and when none was to be heard he got outside. With the explosive charges now available a new route was more viable. He could, and most likely should, drop by the power generating room of the facility.

* * *

Minos though and plotted the shortest route towards the power generation room. It would take him several levels down, and at least half a mile northwards. He could do that. Easily. The only problem would be passing the main corridor and the main guard post near the entrance that normal people used, but he'd find a way.

* * *

Five minutes later Minos found himself in an air shaft above the main guard post. At least ten guards were sitting round a table directly underneath him. Luckily the walls and ceilings were thick so they couldn't hear Minos move. He had to find a way to lure them away so he could plant the bombs in the guard room.

Minos had an idea. He inched forward several metres, until he found what he was looking for. In the shaft was a small curve that bent towards the left, the same way as the main corridor. Minos moved forward another few metres until he reached a vent of some kind. He let a small bomb charge drop there on the floor and crawled back to his original position.

If this worked out then the whole battalion of soldiers would know something wasn't right in the facility. He'd have at least one hundred guards swarming all over the place in one minute. And the prior would soon follow. Oh yeah, this was gonna be so much fun..

He detonated the small charge in the hallway, just around the corner from the guard post. All the guards jumped up to investigate the sound and noise.

When they were away Minos quickly slammed the vent out, jumped down onto the floor and moved like a whirlwind throughout the room. Thirty seconds later five explosive charges were placed hidden around the room and Minos was jumping up towards the vent.

* * *

Only a small minute after Minos had hidden himself in the vent again the guards returned. They had doubled the patrols and they had called in the reserve guards through the portable communications devices they carried. Minos had already moved away far enough from the guard room to safely detonate the bombs.

With an extremely loud 'bang' all the charges exploded at the same time, blowing all the windows out from the wall between the guard post and the main corridor. When the rain of glass had subsided Minos let himself fall down from the air shaft he was hiding in and made a dash for the main exit of the facility.

* * *

Just before the main exit was a large staircase that led to the deeper levels of the facility. The power generation room was situated on the lowest level, together with a few smaller storage rooms.

Minos sprinted towards the staircase and jumped over the edge of the stairs into the drop down below. It was at least twenty metres straight down, and Minos landed with a loud thud on the floor. If he had been a little heavier, or a little less strong, he could have been severely hurt on his jump down.

* * *

Minos had escaped detection by the other guards by only a split second. Just after he dove into the open space a guard patrol had come rushing in, to see what the explosion had been about.

Minos silently moved underneath the stairs, hidden away from any views from above. When he was certain that no-one was looking, he crossed the room and walked through the door.

* * *

This was the lowest level in the whole facility, so there weren't much guards around. Minos took more risks and walked the hallways without much caution. It hadn't proven necessary when he neared the power generation room, and there was no-one coming when he planted six explosive devices around the power core that fed the facility.

But when Minos was finished planting the bombs he heard someone coming. Multiple someones. A large patrol was heading straight his way. Minos could hear at least twelve different footsteps. There was no escape. There was only one door leading to and from the room, and there were no hiding places near. Well, not for a normal person, at least.

* * *

Twelve guards entered the room, walking two-by-two behind each other. They marched through the open doorway, and proceeded cautiously. They checked out every nook and cranny they could find in the room, looking behind, under and inside each object. Except for one.

Minos had climbed via the ceiling of the room straight towards the centre of the power core. There was a quite broad ledge near the top, several metres above floor level. Minos sat on that ledge, hidden from view from beneath. He didn't make a sound.

* * *

Several metres below Minos the twelve guards stood firm in a circle around the power core.

_Shit, _Minos thought. _They must be here to guard the place. I don't see another way out. Wait. There is someone coming..._

Someone was indeed coming, and Minos was not the only one who had noticed it. The guards down below had noticed it too, and they stood to attention.

A minute later a cloaked form entered the room. A brown cloak, an old and weird-looking staff that looked exactly like the ones in Minos's dream and the form moved exactly like a prior too.

There was only one prior on this planet for as far as Minos knew, and this was probably that one. That prior had been at the festivities for all Minos knew, and one could easily travel from the village to the facility so fast. Especially when they used beaming technology. But Minos would've sensed any kind of very advanced technology that was comparable to Ancient-technology, and he hadn't sensed any. Yet.

* * *

The prior heaved his staff up, and a bright light emerged. It seemed almost touchable, like a liquid. It entered the power core Minos was sitting on. The power core began to tremble, to shake and it started making loud noises. This was not good, definitely not good. Minos had to get out and report what he had seen.

The Prior kept pouring light into the power core, but the shaking and trembling faded slowly. The power core seemed to be able to handle it better now. Somehow.

Minos relaxed a bit, and peeked over the edge to see what the prior was up to.

* * *

"I am finished here. The Ori will be pleased."

"Thank you, Prior."

The Prior moved out and a few minutes later the guards moved out too. Minos waited a few more minutes before he moved. With a supple movement Minos jumped down and got out of the room without a single sound.

* * *

After he'd checked out all the storage rooms on the lower floors, Minos made his way upwards. So far he hadn't found much of particular interest, save for a few boxes of raw material. He could use all the resources he could get, so he had tagged them to be beamed away later.

Minos had moved towards the large stairwell again to move to the above-ground levels of the facility. The most interesting things were there, after all. But when he neared the large, open space of the staircase he was alerted by a sound. The sound of guards.

* * *

There was at least one patrol coming from behind and one coming from the front. Minos saw an open door on the other side of the staircase, which he hadn't noticed before. He took a leap and jumped straight over the ten metre drop towards the other side of the room. He made no sound when he rolled over the floor to brake his speed. He stood up, and closed the door quickly.

Figuring out that if the guards opened the door he'd be detected Minos set of in a sprint towards the end of the hallway. He hadn't seen it on the way to the power core, and he sure knew that this wasn't on the blueprints. For one it went the wrong way, outside of the facility instead of inside, and there also were no other doors.

* * *

After a few corners Minos stopped running and listened. Not a sound from a guard patrol coming from behind, but he could hear strange noises coming from up ahead that he couldn't totally place. Which was a rare thing, given that Minos had an overall excellent memory for things normal people wouldn't remember.

His curiosity was piqued, so instead of turning back towards his original goal, Minos continued further down the tunnel leading away from the facility. He figured that he had now passed the outer wall of the facility by at least a hundred metres, and was trailing towards the forest up north. Sometimes an perfect sense of direction came in handy when breaking into enemy weapon factories.

* * *

After a few hundred metres more of walking and listening Minos noticed that the temperature had become hotter, and that the screams and moans, which he could now positively identify, were becoming louder and clearer. It sounded like there was some kind of slave camp up ahead. Of course he didn't think it besides the Ori to use something like slaves, but still. It were the Ori, after all.

When he reached the final length of hallway there was no mistake possible. There were screams and moans, sounds of people in desperate need coming from whatever was up ahead. Minos reached a huge metal door, several metres in both width and height, that blocked his path. There were no guards on this side of the door, but there might be on the other side.

Considering all the risks, Minos made a decision, and opened the door.

* * *

A/N: Ooh, a cliffhanger! Yes, I know, I'm evil. Hopefully for you the next update won't take so long.


	35. Chapter 35

A/N: The new chapter. I worked a bit faster than usual because it was exciting and easy to write. It hope it is to read too... Enjoy!

Reviews are welcome!

* * *

Chapter 35 – Slavery part 1

* * *

Behind the door was another hallway, this time with a lot of rooms on both sides. Minos heard some people speaking above the moaning, shouting and screaming from further down the hall. He advanced further down the hall, weary of any signs of alert.

He passed the room where multiple guards were playing a game of –presumably- cards. He snuck past the open door in a rush, but no-one saw him. Minos continued down the hall, passing several storage-rooms on his way. He reached a big, locked door. There was a small window in it, on the very top of the door, and Minos tried to peak through.

He hung upside down from the ceiling, clinging on to a piece of rock that stuck out just enough to wrap his hand around. He peeked through the window, and almost fell to the floor in amazement.

It was slavery.

* * *

Minos could see clearly what was beyond the closed door. He saw a huge room, at least two hundred metres long, and Minos couldn't even guess how wide or deep. There was a metal pathway suspended into the rocky ceiling of the room with lots and lots of cables. On the other end of the pathway there were two guards standing, fully armed with staff weapons. The pathway split down there, and two sets of stairs leading left and right descended down into the rest of the room.

Shouts and screams of both pain and misery were now clearer than ever. Minos moved closer towards the window, almost with his nose pressed against it. The room was wider than he had expected, or even guessed possible, but there were multiple big towers of rock that held up the ceiling above.

He started guessing how deep it was, but he had no idea. He couldn't see the floor of the room through the small, rectangular window he was peeking through. He could guess what the room was for. It was a mine.

He could see the signs easily. Many crevasses, tears and holes riddled the walls of the chamber, but the structures used to make them were nowhere to see. The only structure tied to the far wall of the room were the metal stairs that cascaded downwards. He looked better, and saw that there was a small amount of smoke in the room, which was led away by a small air canal to the surface.

Minos had to do something. This room was a mine, a big one for as far as he could tell, so it supplied the war factory above. That was where the strange amounts of outgoing and incoming goods where for. And he could guess that the people down there were not volunteers, or paid workers. They were slaves

* * *

This was a relatively secluded part of the facility, so Minos guessed that there were no patrols that ran down here. And if he was careful, the rest of the soldiers would only know of him when it was already too late.

He let himself drop soundlessly from the ceiling, catching himself like a cat on his feet, and ran off towards the room where the guards had been in. He'd finally get to do what he liked best – to fight.

Minos casually walked into the room the guards were in. They all sat, stunned by his sudden appearance, locked in their chairs. When the first one made for his weapons, Minos grabbed his arm and broke it. His screams seemed to get the rest out of their trance, for they started moving around, trying to grab and kill Minos.

The first one attacked him from behind, but Minos felt the attack coming and swung his leg backwards, catching the man full in the face and breaking his neck from the force that bent his head backwards. The second man that attacked him came from the side, so Minos twisted himself in a strange way and punched the guy rock-hard on the nose. He wouldn't be getting up again.

The third guy went down the same way, but by this time the remaining three guards had gotten hold of their staff weapons. They fired at Minos, but he saw the shots coming and managed to evade them. He plunged himself forward, grabbing one of the staff weapons and yanking it out of the owner's grip with surprising strength.

He swung the staff around, catching the middle man straight in the stomach with the pointy end and moving on to hit the third one on the backside of the head, killing him instantly. The only still-standing guard was brought down by the other end of the staff in a rapid succession of blows to the chest and neck. Minos quickly finished the last remaining guard with a blow to the neck too, obliterating the third vertebrae and killing him instantly.

* * *

Minos cocked out a small grin when he stole another staff from the corner of the room. He was going to use it soon, and he was going to like it. The guards he had just defeated were not even a challenge, for Minos had both the element of surprise and the element of strength on his side. Almost all of his attackers thought that he was just a weak boy, and all of them were proven wrong.

Minos left the room, leaving the six dead guards behind, and made his way towards the mine. He opened the door quietly, poked both staff weapons through the opening, aimed and fired. Both guards fell down simultaneously.

Luckily they fell down without a loud clash, otherwise Minos would have had a hard time walking over the steel pathway unnoticed. He made not a sound as he stayed low when he crossed the pathway. He quickly looked around, to observe his surroundings, and almost fainted on the spot.

* * *

The cavern was immense. It was a huge, enormous, gigantic underground room spanning multiple miles in both directions. There were enormous steel support columns placed strategically around the room, holding up the ceiling. The rocky room was shaped like a long crescent, having a small curve in the walls. The room was about two hundred metres wide, for as far as Minos could tell, and about two or three miles in both directions. It was huge.

Minos looked down, and saw huge amounts of workers, slaves of the Ori, walking around between the machineries as they mined deeper and deeper into the bottom of the room. It was about two-hundred metres deep in the middle, and some three hundred at the sides.

The stairs on the far end of the room led down, almost two hundred metres, before they reached a small platform. On the platform was some kind of retractable bridge, which would prevent the workers from escaping. The bridge spanned some twenty metres, until it reached another metal support column that completed the path towards the centre of the room.

* * *

Most of the heavy machines, which were probably ore smelters or purifiers designed by the Ori, stood centred on one of ten 'hills' in the middle of the room. They stuck out from the rest of the floor because they were higher, structured heaps of rock. Minos could see multiple tunnels leading into the anthills of rock, which probably led toward the sleeping rooms for the slaves. If they were allowed to sleep.

He noticed that all the slaves were busy digging deeper into the floor of the room, excavating rocks and soil using crude and simple tools. They dug deep cuts across the bottom of the room, leaving the rocky outcrops on which the machines rested untouched.

Minos made his way towards the other side of the metal pathway. No-one had noticed yet that there were guards lying dead on the stairs. He passed them, and took a left turn towards the stairs leading down.

* * *

Minos wasn't seen because of his small form, and because none of the slaves dared to look up. He reached the steel drop-bridge, and found a lever to unlock the mechanism holding it in place. He was waiting for the bridge to drop, but it didn't. Minos stepped back, took a sprint and jumped into the deck of the bridge. Due to the shock, which wasn't that big really because of Minos' low weight, the rusty holding mechanism got loose and the bridge lowered.

"Who are you?" one of the enslaved men asked curiously.

" The biggest enemy of your enslavers, so I'm a friend." Minos said. "All the guards are dead, so if you want to be free you are free to go."

"Are all the guards dead?" Spoke a voice from above. "Really? I hadn't noticed."

Minos looked up and saw to his surprise that there was a massive patrol of guards standing on the metal pathway a few hundred metres above him.

"FIRE!" The leader guard shouted, and the other guards fired.

* * *

Minos and the slaves ducked away behind one of the machines. Minos ran around the machine, charging both staff weapons he had in his hands. He expertly fired a few shots, killing a few guards on the pathway. The guards quickly saw Minos' new position, and focussed their fire on there.

Minos, however, wasn't even there anymore. He had ducked under the cover of the smoke coming from the machine towards another one, and returned fire from there. But the guards on the pathway were not stupid. They switched their fire from the previous point to where Minos was hiding. All the other slaves in the area had fled, presumably and hopefully to somewhere safe.

Minos ducked away after a blast from one of the guards had almost hit him. He made a sprint, turned in midair so that both staff weapons he was holding were aimed at the guards, and fired. At least six guards fell, having been shot by the blasts from Minos' staffs. His momentum allowed him to keep going, make a backwards somersault and roll to safety behind one of the heavy machines.

Minos wasn't going to do nothing. After all, there were almost fifty guards firing at him from the top of the metal pathway into the room. He moved towards the edge of the machine he was hiding behind, peeked around the corner and fired twice. Two guards fell down, taken down by the blasts shot with Minos' incredible aim.

* * *

He had practised long and hard to increase his aiming to the level it now was, which was almost impossible to reach without years and years of training. Minos could hit a speeding bird with a small rock from over a hundred metres away. He had tested that once, but he had used a catapult to shoot small stones instead of birds. He wasn't going to kill a poor bird just for nothing. Unlike with his enemies, Minos showed great compassion for animals and innocent people. Although, if one had asked it to the guards he had shot, one wouldn't have got that answer.

Minos had almost finished killing off all the guards on the metal pathway, using both staffs, which were longer than himself by at least a foot, to their full extent.

Meanwhile, all the slaves from this complex had stopped working to see the firefight, and word had spread towards the other complexes as well, halting all the work in the mine.

Minos swept away the sweat from his forehead after the fight had subsided and the last of the guards were dead.

* * *

"Do you want to be free?" Minos asked.

"Of course!" one of the slaves shouted.

"Then follow me!" Minos shouted.

The war cry that followed had even Minos shaking in his boots. All the slaves in the entire mine, probably about ten thousand or something, shouted at the same time. They took the tools they had in their hands, and followed Minos as he sprinted towards the bridge.

The whole group ran on the stairs, most of the men hyper by the option of freedom. Minos was almost afraid that the paths couldn't hold such a weight, but apparently the structures were sturdier than he'd thought because they held with ease.


	36. Chapter 36

A/N: Sorry for the late update. Writing three fanfics at the same time pretty much slows down my posting speed. I hope you like it!

Reviews are welcome!

Edit: Ok, a friend at school told me this chapter sucked, especially the end. I agree, so I've rewrote it. I hope it is better now. BTW the official title of the Ori soldiers is 'Guards of the Ori' in this story, so that's why I keep calling them guards.

* * *

Chapter 36 – A Solution

* * *

Minos was happy. Although he hadn't been able to steal and search the entire facility for useful items, the mission was over. It was kinda hard to sneak almost ten thousand slaves unnoticed through a facility. Luckily there had been few guards that posed a challenge to Minos. Ok, there were no guards that posed a challenge to Minos, but the Prior had been the hardest to defeat.

Minos was carrying the Prior's staff now, and he had distributed the weapons from the facility among the slaves. They were walking towards the hideout of the resistance.

"Wait here. I'll notify the resistance." Minos said as he walked towards the cave entrance.

* * *

The resistance headquarters was built into a mountain. Well, built, it was a natural cavern for as far as Minos could tell. The cavern itself was huge, multiple rooms and hallways spanning multiple miles. The entire cavern system probably ran through the tall hill in which it was built.

"Minos, are you finally back?" Tarus asked with concern seeping into his voice.

"Yes. Things took a turn I wasn't expecting." Minos answered.

"Which turn?"

"The Ori used slaves to work in the facility."

"Slaves? What kind? How many?"

"Humans, just like you and me, and about ten thousand, for as far as I could tell."

"Ten thousand?"

"Exactly. They held them in a huge mine that was hidden beneath the surface of one of the woods north of the facility."

"Are these people from here? We've had an awfully large number of disappearances over the past few years."

"They are from here indeed. I spoke to one of them, their leader. He doesn't remember his name, so long has he been there. They all gave them numbers, for identification, but nothing else."

"That is terrible! Can we do anything to help at all?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, you can. This cave system is quite a bit larger than you might think on first glance. It would probably be able to house all the people for a short while."

"But how will we get enough food and water for them? We don't have enough supplies here."

"They had enough supplies in the facility, and we robbed them."

"You robbed them?"

"Yes. All the useful things we could find after the guards were slain are waiting in big carts outside this cave."

"Everything? How much is that?"

"A lot. And on that account..." Minos reached in his pocket and got some kind of remote out. "This." He pressed the button. "Is the rest." He said while an enormous amount of crates and racks appeared, filling most of the cavern floor.

"What is all of this?" Tarus asked after he got out of his surprise.

"This is about one month of production for the entire facility. There's armour, weapons that aren't finished and some processed metals, but most useful things are outside."

"Do you know what good exactly?"

"No, I don't know the exact amounts, but I figure there is enough food to last a month or so, several big stacks of staff weapons, some armour like the one the soldiers use and a few of these nifty little buggers." Minos said as he held up one of the explosive devices.

"What is that?"

"This is an explosive device used to blow up things like walls, doors, and Priors in some cases."

"You blew up the prior?"

"Yes. And I stole his staff. But it's ugly as hell, so I'm not planning on using it more often."

"We owe you thanks, Minos. Great thanks. Is there anything you want in return?"

"As a matter of fact, there are a few things that you can help me with."

"Like what?"

"First of all you can house the slaves in here, and try to give them a place in your society. They all come from villages nearby for as long as I can tell, so that shouldn't be too difficult. They have enough food for a few weeks, and they are used to work."

"Consider it done. Is there anything else?"

"Eh, yes. I may have alerted the other soldiers of the Ori a bit by killing the prior, so they'll be arriving tomorrow-evening or so. There will be more armies to come later on, but I think I can counter them..."

"So what do you want us to do?"

"Well, I need you to arm the resistance with as much weapons as you can, and defend the villagers against the soldiers of the Ori."

"I'll send out word as soon as possible. Can we help with anything else?"

"No, not really. I'll try and set up a defensive system against anything Ori-related that comes either through the gate or by ship to here, but you can't help me with that."

"All right. We'll do everything you ask."

"Thanks. I'll let the others know they can come here."

* * *

Minos left the cave and walked towards the enormous mass of freed slaves that were waiting outside. They entered the cave in an orderly fashion, and quickly spread out to all the hallways and rooms of the cave system.

Minos decided that he might just as well start building the defensive parameter immediately. He could perhaps use the kind of device the Asgard were using to defend their planets from the Goa'uld. Okay, not their planets, but the planets under their guard. He would just have to modify it a few little bits.

He only hoped that the ascended Ori wouldn't decide to start interfering on this scale, otherwise he'd be pretty much screwed. There wasn't much he could do to protect himself from an attack of that magnitude or power. On that account, it'd probably be best if he didn't linger to long in this galaxy.

It had almost become morning when the last of the slaves had finally found a place to stay in the cave-system. They used a few explosive charges to make some extra entrances and exits, with a little help from Minos to secure the mountain on top of them and prevent it from falling down. Minos had finished the device he'd wanted to make using a modified version of another Ancient device, the power source from a few staff weapons and the energy-barriers from multiple armoured plates.

* * *

That afternoon, the other armies of the Ori reached the village Tarus was from. About a hundred soldiers, armed to the brim with staff weapons, marched to the front of the village. Minos, who had anticipated their arrival, had expected their arrival and made plans to do something about it.

"We dare the one that destroyed our factory to come out!" The leader of the attacking soldiers shouted.

"If you do not show yourself, all will die!" The man added after a few seconds.

"We dare the ones that call themselves bringers of justice and righteousness, but enslave our own people, to attack us!" Tarus screamed from the edge of the village.

"Your impudence will not be tolerated!" The leader of the soldiers screamed.

"Your slavery, your rules and supression will not be tolerated anymore! You will leave this planet now, or be killed."

"Ha, and what do you, miserable little farmers without a backbone, want to do about it?" He said while aiming his staff weapon at the village

Suddenly, he stopped mid-movement, looked strange and fell flat on his face, landing in the mud. There was a long arrow sticking out from the back of his head which had killed him immediately after impact.

"Attack the village, or you will all die like you pig-headed leader!" A voice shouted from the tree line.

* * *

Minos had kept himself hidden in the trees of the forest towards the east of the village, waiting with an bow and a quiver of arrows for the first guard to attack the village. He was going to eliminate them if they dared to move. He was sitting on one of the larger branches of a large tree on the very edge of the forest. It was hidden out of view, but still had a nice position to fire from.

A few of the more aggressive soldiers moved forward, thinking the attack had come from the village. Six of the soldiers on the front line (seen from the village) moved out, charging their staff weapons and taking aim.

Minos saw his chance clean and fired five arrows in just under six seconds. The first one hit the last two soldiers square in the head, but it was shot with so much force (and coated with a special mixture of things that allowed it to pass through the armour of the soldiers with ease) that it flew straight through and landed in a tree opposite of Minos.

The other guards dropped like flies too, and the remaining soldiers kept their distance, backing away from the bow-armed danger that had already taken seven of their men with ease.

* * *

The interim-general of the soldiers started barking orders.

"Charge weapons!" "Take aim!" "Fire!" He shouted in a time span of just under ten seconds.

Minos had already seen that the soldiers were aiming at his position, so he had moved away as fast and as stealthily as he could. With his usual, extremely agile movements he jumped away before the guards started firing. He grabbed a branch, swung himself around it and launched himself further. He landed smoothly on some kind of platform in a large tree, where the branches formed a flat surface broad enough to stand on.

He fired a few more arrows at the still-firing soldiers before he decided that it was time to reveal and use his plan. It would present the soldiers with a choice. Either reject the Ori, or die. And it would show off his newest creation to the villagers.

He grabbed his swords and jumped down from the high tree he was standing in. He charged full speed from his position in the woods, swords raised and ready for battle. This kind of suicidal actions were his favourites, they always made him smile if they worked.

When the guards finally noticed Minos was attacking them, five had already fallen by the razor-sharp swords Excalibur and Durandal. Minos swung his swords around, slamming them full-force into the armoured plate mails the guards were wearing, breaking them into oblivion. The guards inside the armour fell just as easy. Because of the extremely limited use of the staffs as close-combat weapons, and Minos' agility and evasive manoeuvres, they couldn't hit him. But it wasn't until a group of other guards started firing on him from further that the thought of leaving sprung through his mind.

Minos jumped backwards and evaded all the shots fired at him by making a double back flip in midair. He landed smoothly and before any other guards could take aim at him he was away already. After a few seconds, they took aim at the relatively small form sprinting away from them at full speed while simultaneously running after him. Minos darted around, making sure he wasn't hit by any of the staff blasts. He made somersaults, barrel rolls and saltos in midair to evade them, and it worked.

Within a few minutes he had run so far ahead that it was useless to fire at him. The soldiers increased their pace, seeking revenge on the kid that had killed many of their own.

* * *

Minos was waiting patiently in front of the device he had just built, sitting relaxed on a small stone in front of it.

The guards entered the relatively secluded area, and when they saw no-one but the kid that had killed a few of their men, they started to laugh. Many of them charged their staff weapons, and took aim at Minos.

But the kid had seen this coming, and was ready to dodge all the shots until the guards were close enough to activate the device. He curled, twisted and moved his body like he had no bones, he jumped and rolled like there was no gravity and he circled the device, wanting the soldiers to come closer. Eventually they did, and Minos saw his chance clear to activate the device.

A soft ringing started, and the large orb on the stone pillar began to glow faintly. The soldiers stopped firing to see what was happening. Once the device had finished its starting sequence, it started doing what it was supposed to do. Large beams of white light shot out from the orb, leaving nothing behind but the armour and weapons of the soldiers. Within several seconds, all the guards had disappeared because of the light, and Minos had returned to his position on the small rock in front of the pillar. A few minutes later, Tarus arrived at the scene, followed by a lot of the villagers.

* * *

"Are the soldiers gone?" Tarus asked.

"Yes. But they're not dead, yet." Minos answered.

"Yet?"

"If they are too stubborn to see that the Ori are nothing but a bunch of lying, cheating bastards they'll eventually succumb to either hunger or thirst."

"And what if they do see that the Ori are false gods?"

"Than they will be able to cross the barrier. They'll find a pretty open pathway leading directly out of the forest towards your village."

"How does the barrier know they are to be trusted?"

"It doesn't know it, but it can detect lies. And I know only of a few people that would be able to mislead the device."

"So this is a permanent solution?"

"In the essence, yes. Everyone coming through the gate will be tested by this pillar, and everyone who believes in the Ori to the point of violence will be transported away."

"Only to the point of violence?"

"Yes. It is not my intention, and neither is it completely possible, to destroy the religion of Origin. Traders from other planets can still come here to trade, as long as they do not put so much faith in the Ori that they are prepared to kill a man for his ideas."

"Then we have found a solution."

* * *

A/N: Whaddya think? Better? Please leave a review with comments!


	37. Chapter 37

A/N: Sorry for the very long wait. I was kinda busy updating my fic on , which has turned from a less important story to a story that hit me in the deepest parts of my soul and wouldn't let go anymore. And because I do not have any extremely clear ideas about what to do next I think my next updates will be slow as well (Especially with the first test week coming up.) I'll try to post another chapter or two in one of my fics before the tests start, though.

I hope this chapter is not as bad as I think it is.

Reviews are welcome! (If you think it sucks just say it, I can take it...)

* * *

Chapter 37 – Conference Call

* * *

"Greetings, Thor." Minos started.

"Greetings, Minos. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Partially to my new subspace communication system and partially because the Ori have sunk even deeper into the pits of my despisal."

"What made you disdain them even further?"

"Well, I kinda sneaked into their galaxy without them knowing it, and looked around on the planet. Turns out that the Ori use their missionaries, called Priors, to enslave innocent civilians from all the planets in the galaxy."

"What kind of slavery?"

"From what I have seen, they were robbed of their identities and forced to do extensive physical labour in terrible working conditions. There were about ten-thousand 'slaves' in the mine I found. Ordinary humans like you an... Oh, wait, sorry. Ordinary humans like the general population of the Milky Way. They were being suppressed, for all I could tell."

"Hmm. That indeed sounds very negative. How do you propose we act to this new development?"

"Well, for now, nothing. If we do anything on a large scale I think we'll have a bit of trouble holding the Ori themselves on a distance."

"I take it that you have taken a _smaller_ approach."

"Yeah, you could say that. But the slaves are free, and one of the weapon-producing factories is kinda blown to hell by now, I think."

"What has happened to the people on the planet?"

"They are safe, for now. I installed a device much like the hammer you installed on Cimmeria, but instead of focussing on physical attributes it focuses on certain thought-patterns. The ones overwriting the ethical centre of the brain, to be exact."

"Do you think it is effective?" Thor asked after a few seconds.

"Effective to normal humans, yes. But I'm not sure about the Priors, the missionaries from the Ori, and the Ori themselves though."

"Do the others know this?"

"Not yet, I'm about to call them now."

"Very well. Farewell, Minos."

"Bye."

Thor closed the connection.

* * *

"You do know that your _solution _is not going to withstand the Ori for long?" A feminine voice behind Minos asked.

"Probably, yes." Minos answered.

"And that the Ori are furious."

"When was the last time that I haven't infuriated an Ascended being?" Minos sarcastically asked, turning around to see Gannos Lal standing, well floating was more like it, in the halls of his palace.

"You have not invoked the wrath of the Others for quite some time now." Gannos said.

"And what about you?"

"You know that I am not entirely impartial when it comes to matters concerning you."

"Of course. That's only rational. Just like it would have been rational to let the slaves rot away in the mine." Minos said coldly.

"Why this anger?"

"I can't stand slavery. It's number three on the things I hate most."

"With number one and two being?"

"Children being hurt and needles."

"Needles still? I would have thought you would be over that by now."

"Sometimes having a good memory is a curse." Minos sighed with a pained look in his eyes. "But what brings you here?"

"A message from the others."

"An angry one or a boring one?"

"I am guessing you would find it to be both, If repeated in its totality."

"Can you summarize it please?"

"You are not to go to the Ori galaxy again until the conflict is over, you are not allowed to use or recreate the device you built on that planet and you are to be punished for your thoughtless actions."

"Is that all?"

"Depends on if you are going to listen to it."

"Probably not, though I don't think I have much choice. What would happen If I don't listen to it?"

"You will be punished."

"Punished with?"

"Needles." Gannos returned coldly.

"Ouch."

"Goodbye, Minos."

"Bye, Morgan."

* * *

Minos rested his head back on the chair. He had yet to call the other allies, to bring them up to speed on the latest news, but he was tired as hell. Fighting like he had done in the Ori galaxy took a lot out of you, and he certainly wasn't looking forward to repeating the same story often. There had to be a way to speed things up a little bit. Maybe he could hold a conference call or something?

He got an idea and immediately started working in the subspace communications device he had built himself. That was an advantage of being an million year old Ancient, you could build all kinds of complex and handy tools and things. Even for an Ancient he was quite crafty and liked technology. Probably because he was good at it, and because it had saved his life on numerous occasions.

Almost ten minutes later Minos was finished. He rebooted the communications device and waited while it was calculating things out. When the device had finished, Minos opened a comm to all the allies that he hadn't contacted yet.

* * *

"Hi guys!" he said cheerfully when the faces of the different allies opened up on his screen.

"Greetings, Minos."

"Hey, Minos. What can we do for you?" Colonel O'Neill said.

"Well, nothing so far but I'd like to tell you that I've done another scouting mission in the Ori galaxy."

"And?" Anteaur interrupted.

"Well, I didn't think I could hate the Ori more but they keep surprising me. They 'colonized' most of the planets in their galaxy, I think, and spread humans all over the place. Most of them, for all I have seen so far, haven't advanced much further than the average human population in this galaxy. But the Ori armies are what's concerning me."

"What's the matter with them?"

"Well, the armies are led by Priors, some kind of missionaries that hold a 'higher' connection to the Ori themselves. I haven't figured out exactly what connection. But the fact remains that they have certain 'gifts' that they haven't obtained in a natural way. Telekinesis and all that kinds of 'special powers'. And they use these kinds of staffs that boost their power."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Well, not to me but to the average population of this galaxy I'd say they're rather deadly. They have bags of magic tricks but most of them aren't used to wield their powers. They lack the skills that come with those who have the powers since birth."

"So the Ori armies are a bunch of losers with magic tricks?" O'Neill asked.

"In a way, yes. But the Priors are only the leaders of the armies. The average soldier is human in each and every aspect, but they have staff weapons and fancy armour. The staff weapons look like this," Minos held one of the staffs in front of the screen, so that everyone could see it, "and they're different from the staffs of the Priors."

"Different how so?"

"The staffs from the Priors boost 'superhuman' powers like telekinesis and such. But the other staffs are quite normal, in fact, they work in the same way as the jaffa staffs, but they are slightly more effective. The power source is an energy crystal that looks a lot like the things that power Alteran technology, but then smaller. The armour the soldiers were wearing has a force field that renders is nearly impossible to breach using common energy-based weapons. Arrows and high-quality or very powerful energy weapons will still do the tricks. It's a bit compatible with the Kull armour that we see in the warriors from Anubis, I think."

"Will the new gun work against them?" O'Neill asked.

"I don't exactly know. I couldn't detect any flaws in the energy patterns, but it was overloadable using Excalibur or Durandal."

"What new gun are you speaking of?" Ambassador Varta from Galara asked.

"An energy weapon, not much bigger than a normal gun, designed for and capable of killing a Kull warrior with one shot. It's currently in production with the Tau'ri, but we haven't been able to test its efficiency in the field."

"What is the army size of the Ori?" Ambassador Gren, from Oannes, asked.

"On the planet I scouted were not more than a few battalions of soldiers. Currently there are none left, and the Ori lost one weapon factory on that planet."

"A weapon factory?"

"It was making these staffs and the armour. I discovered it and blew it up after stealing some useful items. The Ori use slaves to work in their facility, and I liberated them."

"What items did you steal?"

"Weapons, armour, resources, all that kind of stuff. It's still back on that planet, which is now in the hands of the resistance."

"Would the Ori have not intervened?" Anteaur asked.

"They would have, and I think they have, by now. But I installed a device like Thor's Hammer on the planet to safeguard it from attacks by ordinary humans. And it gives off a radiation that ascended beings don't really like."

"Thor's Hammer? Like the one on Cimmeria?" O'Neill asked.

"Yes, that one."

"You mentioned that the weapons factory produced these staff weapons, but where are the Ori starships produced then?" Garshaw from the Tok'ra asked.

"I'm not sure. I've heard a few stories from the people of the resistance about huge ships being built on different world throughout the galaxy, but I haven't seen them for myself. And with the message I got from my 'superiors', I don't think it's a very good idea if I repeat this stunt anytime soon."

"Your superiors?" Anteaur asked.

"The Ascended didn't like my intervention into the balance between the galaxies."

"I can understand that." Anteaur said.

"Anyway, I just wanted to send you a warning that if you hear of any stories of magic and wizardry on any planet in this galaxy, it's probably the Ori. Their religion is called Origin, and from what I've seen it was, once, a pretty ethically-based religion, but now it has taken a turn for the worse. The soldiers and priors are pretty much uncaring for the consequences of their actions, as long as they're meant to destroy the infidels."

"Can you give an example?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, when I was on the planet a large force, about two hundred soldiers or so, was marching towards a village, where they thought I was hiding in. They threatened to kill all villagers and destroy the village unless the entire resistance, including me, surrendered."

"What did you do to them?" O'Neill asked.

"Most of them are alive, I guess, though they are all trapped in a contained cave until they are ready to accept that there are other people that do not believe in Origin, and are able to live in peace."

"What happens when they can't?"

"The same thing that happens when a jaffa stumbles on Cimmeria and comes in contact with Thor's Hammer."

"Would the Ori have not intervened?"

"No, I kept hidden pretty well. Besides, I didn't use a lot of 'special powers' that they can detect from large distances."

"I always presumed the Ascended were all-knowing." Ambassador Varta said.

"All-knowing might not be the best way to describe it. It's more like being able to learn everything you wish in an instant. But you have to know it exists before being able to learn everything about it. And if they didn't know I existed in that galaxy they wouldn't have found me. And apparently they didn't find out I liberated a planet there."

"Would the resistance be a valuable ally to our cause?" O'Neill asked.

"I'm not sure. They're not extremely widespread in the galaxy, they're not advanced enough to compete with the technology from the Ori and they don't have much resources. Any large scale mining operation or production plant would immediately be destroyed by the Ori before it could be of use."

"And what about guerrilla tactics?"

"I'm not quite sure yet. If done on a very small scale, and only sporadically, then maybe. But if we cause too much damage to their plans they could wipe the entire resistance out of the galaxy in the blink of an eye. So no, I don't think the resistance could be an valuable ally in terms of weapons and manpower, but I do think we could set up an intelligence network through their contacts. I'll start working on it soon."

"Is there anything else you wanted to share with us?"

"Not really, no. Goodbye."

"Farewell, Minos."


	38. Chapter 38

A/N: I know it's been a long, much too long time since I updated this story. The story was at a halt, and I felt more connected (at the moment) to my other story (The one on . Same pen name as here, see my profile.) But I decided that I wanted to at least try to finish this story, to bring it to a successful end. I don't know how this chapter fits in my not-yet-existing megalomaniac plan for an ending, but at least there's some action in it. I hope that it's readable.

Reviews are Welcome!

* * *

Chapter 38 – An Unexpected Attack

* * *

Minos woke up early. It was a beautiful morning, sunny, like usual when you're on a desert planet, but not too hot. Minos prepared himself for another day full of meetings and plannings and talkings and all kinds of things that bored him out of his skull. He wasn't a sitter or a talker, he wanted to do something. Perhaps that was his still-young body speaking up, or perhaps he had always been that way. He couldn't really remember.

After a nice breakfast Minos took a short walk - well, a detour over the rooftops was more like it- before he had to head back to the palace for the talks to start. He felt ill at ease, even though he was on his own planet. Maybe it was the fact that he was now sitting on top of a five-story high building without a ladder, but he had done that before. Many times, in fact. That couldn't be the thing that made him uneasy. So what was it that upset his nerves?

He mused about what could have set his nerves to act so strange when he saw a small shadow moving in the skies above. He looked closely, focussing on his sight as much as possible because the shadow was still very far away. He immediately guessed that it was a ship. Probably Goa'uld in origin, most likely an Ha'tak. It wasn't Asgard, that was for sure because those ships were both bigger and more elegant than the plump form of the Ha'tak. And it wasn't Tauri in origin either. They would have called ahead and inform him if their new ship was going to hyperspeed for its first test.

Minos had seen the blueprints for the first ship the Tauri had come up with. They had made plans for a hyperspeed-capable ship delightfully fast. Not more than a few weeks had gone by since the Asgard sent one of their own to help designing the new ship. The fact that they even sent one of their own engineers to the Tauri to help was quite a feat in itself. They didn't usually do anything remotely like that, but these were strange times that called for strange measures.

Minos could see that the ship was moving towards the planet and he acted immediately. The emergency control room was in the palace, and from there he could set out the alarms and activate the shields. The most important thing now was to get there as quickly as possible, before the ship was in firing range.

* * *

He jumped down from the building as smooth as a cat, ignoring the fact that the building had been around fifty feet high before landing without a hitch. He sprinted off immediately, heading towards the palace.

The first few streets he had raced through had been fairly calm, almost deserted even, but as he neared the market square it became busier and busier. Soon Minos found himself slaloming between the people. He was moving too fast for shouting to have much effect. By the time people heard him he had already passed them.

After a few ducks and jumps through, over and under a particular dense group of people Minos reached the stairs that led to market square. He saw that it was very busy, probably because today was a large market day. He slid smoothly over the stone walls that bordered the stairs, controlling his speed with expertise and precision. Who said that sliding down the stairs when you're young was a bad thing? With his superior agility and control he could slide them with ease. And it provided you with an extra method of transportation.

When he had reached the bottom of the long stairs all that was left to cross before he reached the palace was the market. It would be completely pointless to try and worm a way through the mass of people that had assembled around and between the stalls, so Minos chose a different way.

With a large jump, spanning several metres, Minos jumped onto the first market stall, using the eerily thin wooden top bar as footing. With surprising speed, even for him, he ran over the thin wooden planks towards the palace, taking an occasional jump over a pathway where there were no stalls.

When he had crossed the market stalls he realised how lucky he had been. The top bars from the stalls weren't even supposed to hold a person half his weight, let alone him. But they had held, for which Minos was thankful. Sometimes it paid off to be a lightweight, he mused. More than once his low weight had saved him from a painful fall because he could stand on thinner planks and weaker floors than his enemies.

He entered the palace on the same speed with which he had crossed the market square. He ran straight towards the control room, using the walls and pillars to make corners faster.

He stormed inside the control room, stunning the guards that were inside. It was quite a crude control room, all the technical stuff was hidden behind thick walls. Only several screens were visible, and there were a few people in front of them, watching the screens.

* * *

The guards were capable people that knew what they were doing. Minos had trained most of them himself, so he knew that they were at least capable of reacting if necessary. The fact that they looked at him completely surprised because of his sudden entry testified that they had had no idea that there was a ship coming. It had probably been cloaked or hidden by some kind of new device. He should really update the scanners and sensor arrays to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

Minos moved over to the control panel that held the shield systems and smashed his hand on the necessary buttons to raise it.

The shield was quite an ingenious thing. He had thought of the idea a very long time ago, but he had had a lot of trouble fixing all the problems and bugs in the system. It worked flawlessly now. The shield could hold all energy-based attacks, but it wouldn't use a lot of power unless it was hit. The shield would form itself just before impact, strengthening only the areas that were hit by weapon fire. The good thing about the system was that it was hardly detectable unless one started firing on it.

* * *

Minos looked around, thinking what he could do more to deal with the Goa'uld Ha'tak that was on his doorstep. Then he saw the strange and questioning looks from the people in the control room .

"There's an Ha'tak coming." Minos said.

"A Ha'tak? But our scanners detected no such a thing!" One of the guards said.

"It was probably cloaked. I saw it drop out of hyperspace only a minute ago."

"But my lord, there's still nothing visible on the scanners. Even the close-range ones."

"Have you tried shifting the frequencies to the high-band? I know Goa'uld cloaking devices don't use those frequencies, but maybe this one does."

"Ah, yes. I've found it. The Ha'tak is heading towards us. It's not powering weapons, my lord. What do you suggest we do now?"

"We wait until it's closer to see what it wants." Minos answered.

"All-right, My lord." The guard said.

"My lord, the ship is hailing us."

"Open the channel. Let's see what they want now."

* * *

The channel popped up on the screen in front of Minos, showing the beautiful face of Bastet. Well, beautiful for as far as Goa'ulds can be called beautiful.

"Surrender your planet, and no harm will come your way." Basted started, using her usual opening when encountering a new planet. Minos had seen it often enough.

"No." Minos replied casually.

Bastet seemed taken by surprise by this answer. She quickly regained her composure, however. "You would do unwise to reject a god." She said on a soft but eerily scaring tone.

"And you would do wise to get the hell out of my property." Minos replied dryly.

"Very well. You will face the wrath of a god." Bastet said.

"My Lord, the Goa'uld ship is firing."

"Will the shields hold?" Minos asked.

"Yes, my lord. The energy blasts dissipate without effect."

"What kind of trickery is this?" Basted said angrily through the connection. "Which devilish arts do you practise?"

"The devilishly funny art of fooling a stupid Goa'uld." Minos said casually. "Launch the weapon. Keep the ship whole, and keep its occupants alive. I'll deal with them later." Minos said to the guard.

"My lord, all the ship's inhabitants but one have been transported." The guard replied after a few moments.

"Aha. Seems that dear Bastet has a trick up her sleeve. Very well. If she wants to play it that way. Activate the transporters, please. Beam me directly to the bridge of her ship." Minos ordered the guard.

"Yes my lord."

Minos felt the usual light tingle from the transporter and before he knew it he was on the bridge of Bastet's Ha'tak.

* * *

"Good morning, Bastet."

"What have you done? Where are all my Jaffa!" Bastet screamed.

"Now, now, Bastet, don't be so angry. They are taken care of. Besides, they'd only ruin our fun."

"I am a god! I cannot be touched!" Basted screamed.

"Shall we see about that?" Minos said with a grin that didn't reach his eyes.

Bastet reacted faster than Minos had expected her to. He was taken quite by surprise by the suddenness with which she used her Kara Kesh. She blew him away using the usual attack Goa'ulds start with. Minos could deal with it perfectly fine, but in this case it was a disadvantage to have a relatively low weight like him. The blow had more effect on him than it would have on a heavier person. Although, maybe it was only an advantage because he was lighter and more agile, so he could catch himself without hurting.

Minos was pushed back hard and he flew several metres through the air before regaining control of himself and landing as smooth as a cat on the control consoles of the bridge.

"How! That is not possible! No mere human has that kind of agility!" Bastet raged as she saw that her opponent had caught himself easily after her attack.

"Appearances can deceive, Bastet. For example, I know that you are naught more than a mere snake, a parasite, dependant on its host to live and prosper. I know that you will die when you leave your host."

"If I chose to leave my host, the host will die, not I." Bastet retorted.

"Wrong. Why don't we try it out right now? I'll kill your host, seeing that you have had this one for about a thousand years or so I think she has lost all the will to live by now. I'll give the host mercy by killing her, but let's see if you can survive the whole ordeal."

"You fool! You cannot touch me! I am an immortal god!"

"Let's see exactly how immortal you are, Bastet." Minos said as he reached inside the coat he was wearing. He grabbed his favourite sword, Excalibur.

"No! That cannot be! That blade was destroyed!" Bastet panicked when she saw the sword Minos was holding.

"Wrong again, Bastet. This blade wasn't destroyed. It's still very much alive." Minos said with a grin as he saw what effect the mere sight of the blade had on Bastet.

"How can that be! I saw the blade being destroyed! I destroyed it myself!" Bastet raged.

"The thing that you destroyed was naught more than a mere copy, incapable of doing anything besides looking exactly like this sword. I know it, because I made that copy. I fooled you, Bastet. How do you like that, being fooled by 'a mere human'."

"That is impossible! The sword has been lost for ages and you are not even a man. You're a child, not even old enough to have a beard!"

"Appearances can deceive, Bastet. I not only made the copy of Excalibur, but I also forged this blade myself. I wielded it throughout the ages and eons, killing all that needed and deserved killing. And now I'll add another Goa'uld to the list."

"HA! You still cannot touch me! You are merely stalling!" Bastet screamed, a glint of craziness in her eyes and voice."

Minos swung his famous blade with deadly precision and unsurpassable speed, slicing clean through Bastet's head in one go. Both host and Goa'uld died instantly, and completely painless.

"Wrong again, Bastet." Minos said when his opponent fell to the ground, dead.

* * *

A/N: Bad? Good? Completely terrible? Awful? Please review!


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